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B O T H I E 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH 



THE 



B OT H I E 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH 



A LONG-VACATION PASTORAL. 



BY 



ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH 



NUNC FORMOSISSIMUS ANNUS. 



CAMBRIDGE: 

JOHN BARTLETT 

1849. 






NOTE 



V ill 

t 



The reader is warned to expect eveiy kind of irregularity 
tliese modern hexameters : spondaic lines, so called, are almo? 
the nile ; and a word will often require to be transposed b) 
the voice from the end of one line to the beginning of the next 



CAMBRIDGE: 
METCALF AND COMPANY, 

PUIXTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 



MY LONG-VACATION PUPILS 

AVILL, I HOPE, ALLOW ME TO IXSCEIBE THIS TRIFLE TO 
THEM, AND WILL XOT, I TRUST, BE DISPLEASED IF, 
IN A FICTION, PURELY FICTION, THEY ARE HERE AND 
THERE REMINDED OF TIMES WE ENJOYED TOGETHER. 



Socii cratera coronant. 

It was the afternoon ; and the sports were all but 

over. 
Long had the stone been put, tree cast, and 

thrown the hammer ; 
Up the perpendicular hill. Sir Hector so called 

it, 
Eight stout shepherds and giUies had run, two 

wondrous quickly ; 
Run too the course on the level had been ; the 

leaping was over : 
Last in the show of dress, a novelty recently 

added, 



8 THE BOTHIE OF 

Noble ladies their prizes adjudged for costume 

that was perfect, 
Turning the clansmen about, who stood with up- 
raised elbows ; 
Bowing their eje-glassed brows, and fingering kilt 

and sporran. 
It was four of the clock, and the sports were all 

but over. 
Therefore the Oxford party went off to adorn for 

the dinner. 
Be it recorded in song who was first, who last, 

in dressing. 
Hope was the first, black-tied, white-waistcoated, 

simple, His Honor ; 
For the postman made out he was son to the Earl 

of Bay, 
(As indeed he was, to the younger brother, the 

Colonel,) 
Treated him therefore with special respect ; doffed 

bonnet, and ever 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 9 

Called him his Honor : his Honor he therefore 
Tvas at the cottage. 

Always his Honor at least, sometimes the Vis- 
count of Hay. 
Hope was first, his Honor, and next to his 
Honor the Tutor. 

Still more plain the Tutor, the grave man nick- 
named Adam, 

White-tied, clerical, silent, with antique square- 
cut waistcoat 

Formal, unchanged, of black cloth, but with sense 
and feeling beneath it ; 

Skilful in Ethics and Logic, in Pindar and Poets 
unrivalled ; 

Shady in Latin, said Lindsay, but tofiying in 
Plays and Aldrich. 
Somewhat more splendid in dress, in a waist- 
coat work of a lady, 

Lindsay succeeded ; the lively, the cheery, cigar- 
loving Lindsay, 



10 THE BOTHIE OF 

Lindsay the ready of speech, the Piper, the 

Dialectician, 
This was his title from Adam because of the 

words he invented. 
Who in three weeks had created a dialect new 

for the party. 
Master in all that Avas new, of whate'er was 

recherche and racy. 
Master of newest inventions, and ready deviser of 

newer ; 
This was his title from Adam, but mostly they 

called him the Piper. 
Lindsay succeeded, the lively, the cheery, cigar- 
loving Lindsay. 
Hewson and Hobbes were down at the matutine 

bathing ; of course too 
Arthur Audley, the bather par excellence, glory 

of headers, 
Arthur they called him for love and for euphony ; 

so were they bathing. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 11 

There where in mornings was custom, where over 

a ledge of granite 
Into a granite bason descended the amber tor- 
rent. 
There were they bathing and dressing ; it was but 

a step from the cottage, 
Only the road and larches and ruinous millstead 

between. 
Hewson and Hobbes followed quick upon Adam ; 

on them followed Arthur. 
Airhe descended the last/splendescent as god 

of Oljmpus ; 
Blue, half-doubtfully blue, was the coat that had 

white silk facings. 
Waistcoat blue, coral-buttoned, the white-tie finely 

adjusted. 
Coral moreover the studs on a shirt as of crochet 

of women : 
When for ten minutes already the fourwheel had 

stood at the gateway. 



12 THE BOTHIE OF 

He, like a god, came leaving his ample Olympian 

chamber. 
And in the fourwheel they drove to the place 

of the clansmen's meeting. 
So in the fourwheel they came ; and Donald 

the innkeeper showed them 
Up to the barn where the dinner should be. 

Four tables were in it ; 
Two at the top and the bottom, a little upraised 

from the level, 
These for Chairman and Croupier,* and gentry fit 

to be with them. 
Two lengthways in the midst for keeper and gillie 

and peasant. 
Here were clansmen many in kilt and bonnet as- 
sembled ; 
Keepers a dozen at least ; the Marquis's targeted 

gilHes ; 

* Vice-President. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 13 

Pipers five or six, among them the young one, the 

drunkard ; 
Many with silver brooches, and some with those 

brilHant crystals 
Found amid granite-dust on the frosty scalp of the 

Cairn- Gorm ; 
But with snuff-boxes all, and all their boxes 

using. 
•Here too were Catholic Priest, and Established 

Minister standing, 
One to say grace before, the other after the 

dinner ; 
Catholic Priest ; for many still clung to the 

Ancient Worship, 
And Sir Hector's father himself had built them a 

chapel ; 
So stood Priest and Minister, near to each other, 

but silent, 
One to say grace before, the other after the 

dinner. 



14 THE BOTHIE OF 

Hither anon too came the shrewd, ever-ciphering 
Factor, 

Hither anon the Attache, the Guardsman mute 
and stately, 

Hither from lodge and bothie * in all the adjoin- 
ing shootings 

Members of Parliament many, forgetful of votes 
and blue books. 

Here, amid heathery hills, upon beast and bird of 
the forest. 

Venting the murderous spleen of the endless Rail- 
way Committee. 

Hither the Marquis of Ayr, and Dalgarnish Earl 
and Croupier, 

And at their side, amid murmurs of welcome, 
long-looked for, himself too 

Eager, the gray, but boy-hearted Sir Hector, the 
Chief and the Chairman. 



Hut. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICII. 15 

Then was the dinner served, and the Minister 

asked a blessing, 
And to the viands before them with knife and 

with fork thej beset them ; 
Venison, the red and the roe, with mutton ; and 

grouse succeeding ; 
Such was the feast, with whiskey of course, and at 

top and bottom 
Small decanters of Sherry, not overchoice, for the 

gentry. 
So to the viands before them with laughter and 

chat they beset them. 
And, when on flesh and on fowl had appetite duly 

been sated. 
Up rose the Catholic Priest and returned God 

thanks for the dinner. 
Then on all tables were set black bottles of well- 
mixed toddy, 
And, with the bottles and glasses before them, 

they sat digesting. 



16 THE BOTHIE OF 

Talking, enjoying, but chiefly awaiting the toasts 
and speeches. 



Spare me, mighty Remembrance ! for words 

to the task were unequal. 
Spare me, mistress of Song ! nor bid me re- 
count minutely 
All that was said and done o'er the well-mixed 

tempting toddy. 
Bid me not show in detail, grimace and gesture 

painting. 
How were healths proposed and drunk with all the 

honors, 
Glasses and bonnets waving, and three-times-three 

thrice over. 
Queen, and Prince, and Army, and Landlords all, 

and Keepers ; 
Bid me not, grammar defying, repeat from gram- 

mar-defiers 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 17 

Long constructions strange and plusquam-tliucydi- 

dean, 
Tell, how as sudden torrent in time of speat * in 

the mountain 
Hurries six ways at once, and takes at last to the 

roughest. 
Or as the practised rider at Astley's or Fran- 

coni's 
Skilfully, boldly bestrides many steeds at once in 

the gallop. 
Crossing from this to that, with one leg here, one 

yonder, 
So, less skilful, but equally bold, and wild as the 

torrent. 
All through sentences six at a time, unsuspecting 

of syntax. 
Hurried the lively good-will and garrulous tale of 

Sir Hector. 

* Flood. 



18 THE BOTHIE OF 

Left to oblivion be it, the memory, faithful as 
ever. 

How the noble Croupier would wind up his word 
with a whistle, 

How the Marquis of Ayr, with quaint gesticu- 
lation 

Floundering on through game and mess-room rec- 
ollections, 

Gossip of neighbouring forest, praise of targeted 
gillies. 

Anticipation of royal visit, skits at pedestri- 
ans, 

Swore he would never abandon his country, nor 
give up deer-stalking ; 

How, too, more brief, and plainer in spite of 
Gaelic accent. 

Highland peasants gave courteous answer to 
flattering nobles. 
Two orations alone the memorial song will 
render ; 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 19 

For at the banquet's close spake thus the lively 
Sir Hector, 

Somewhat husky with praises exuberant, often re- 
peated, 

Pleasant to him and to them, of the gallant High- 
land soldiers 

Whom he erst led in the fight; — something-husky, 
but cheery, though weary. 

Up to them rose and spoke the gray but gladsome 
chieftain : — 
Fill up your glasses once more, my friends — 
with all the honors, 

There was a toast which I forgot, which our gallant 
Highland homes have 

Always welcomed the stranger, I may say, delight- 
ed to see 

Fine young men at my table — My friends ! are 
you ready ? the Strangers. 

Gentlemen, I drink your healths, — and I wish 
you — with all the honors ! 



20 THE BOTHIE OF 

So he said, and the cheers ensued, and all the 

honors, 
All our Collegians were bowed to, the Attache 

detecting His Honor, 
The Guardsman moving to Arthur, the Marquis 

sidling to Airlie, 
While the little drunken Piper came across to 

shake hands with Lindsay. — 
But, while the healths were being drunk, was 

much tribulation and trouble. 
Nodding and beckoning across, observed of At- 
tache and Guardsman : 
Adam would n't speak, — indeed it was known he 

could n't ; 
Hewson could, and would if they wished ; Philip 

Hewson the poet, 
Hewson the radical hot, hating lords and scorning 

ladies, 
Silent mostly, but often reviling in fire and 

fury 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 21 

Feudal tenures, mercantile lords, competition and 

bishops. 
Liveries, armorial bearings, amongst other things 

the Game-laws: 
He could speak, and was asked-to by Adam, but 

Lindsay aloud cried 
(Whiskey was hot in his brain) Confound it, no, 

not Hewson, 
A'nt he cock-sure to bring-in his eternal poHtical 

humbug ? 
However, so it must be, and after due pause of 

silence. 
Waving his hand to Lindsay, and smiUng queerly 

to Adam, 
Up to them rose and spoke the poet and radical 

Hewson. 
I am, I think, perhaps the most perfect strang- 
er present. 
I have not, as two or three of my friends, in my 

veins some tincture, 



22 THE BOTHIE OF 

Some few ounces of Scottish blood ; no, nothing 
like it. 

I am therefore perhaps the fittest to answer and 
thank you. 

So I thank you, sir, for myself and for my 
companions. 

Heartily thank you all for this unexpected greet- 
ing, 

All the more welcome as showing you do not ac- 
count us intruders 

Are not unwilling to see the north and south for- 
gather. 

And, surely, seldom have Scotch and English 
more joyously mingled ; 

Scarcely with warmer hearts, clearer sense of 
mutual manhood, 

Even in tourney, and foray, and fray, and regular 
battle, 

Where the life and the strength come out in the 
tug and tussle, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 23 

Scarcely, where man confronted man, and soul 

clasped soul, 
Close as the bodies and intertwining limbs of 

athletic wrestlers 
When for a final bout are a day's two champions 

mated, — 
In the grand old times of bows, and bills, and 

claymores. 
At the old Flodden-field — Bannockburn — CuUo- 

den. 
— (And he paused a moment, for breath, and be- 
cause of cheering,) 
We are the better friends, I fancy, for that old 

fighting. 
Better friends, inasmuch as we know each other 

better, 
We can now shake hands without subterfuge or 

shuffling. 
On this passage followed a great tornado of 

cheering, 



24 THE BOTHIE OF 

Tables were rapped, feet stamped, a glass or two 
got broken : 

He, ere the cheers had died wholly awaj, and 
while still there was stamping, 

Added with a smile in an altered voice his sarcas- 
tic conclusion. 
Yet I myself have little claim to this honor of 
having my health drunk. 

For I am not a game-keeper, I think, nor a game- 
preserver. 
So he said, and sat down, but his satire was 
not taken. 

Only the Men, who were all on their legs as con- 
cerned in the thanking. 

Were a trifle confused, but mostly stared without 
laughing ; 

Lindsay alone, close-facing the chair, shook his fist 
at the speaker. 

Only a Liberal member, away at the end of the 
table, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 25 

Started, remembering sadlj the chance of a com- 
ing election, 

Only the Attache sneered to the Guardsman, who 
twirled his moustachio, 

Only the Marquis faced round, but not quite clear 
of the meaning 

Joined with the joyous Sir Hector, who lustily 
beat on the table. 
And soon after the chairman arose, and the 
feast was over : 

Now should the barn be cleared and forthwith 
adorned for the dancing, 

And our friends, retiring to wait for this consum- 
mation. 

Were, as they stood in the doorway uncertain, 
debating together, 

By the good chieftain so joyous invited hard-by to 
the castle. 

But as the doorway they quitted, a thin man clad 
as the Saxon, 



26 THE BOTHIE OF 

Trouser and cap and jacket of home-spun blue, 

hand-woven, 
Singled out, and said with determined accent to 

Hewson, 
Resting his hand on his shoulder, while each with 

eyes dilating 
Firmly scanned each : Young man, if ye pass 

through the Braes o' Lochaber, 
See by the loch-side ye come to the Bothie of 

Toper-na-fuosich. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 27 



11. 

Et certainen erat, Corydon cum Thyrside, magnum, 

JMoKX, in yellow and white came broadening out 
from the mountains, 

Long ere music and reel were hushed in the barn 
of the dancers. 

Duly in matutine bathed before eight some two of 
the party, 

There where in mornings was custom, where over 
a ledge of granite 

Into a gi^anite bason descended the amber tor- 
rent. 

Duly there two plunges each took Philip and 
Arthur, 



28 THE BOTHIE OF 

Duly in matutine bathed, and read, and wished 

for breakfast ; 
Breakfast commencing at nine lingered lazily on 

to noon-day. 
Tea and coffee was there ; a jug of water for 

Hewson ; 
Tea and coffee ; and four cold grouse upon the 

sideboard ; 
Cranberry-jam was reserved for tea, and for festive 

occasions : 
Gayly they talked, as they sat, some late and lazy 

at breakfast, 
Some professing a book, some smoking outside at 

the window. 
'Neath an [aurora soft-pouring a still sheeny tide 

to the zenith, ) 
Hewson and Arthur, with Adam, had walked and 

got home by eleven ; 
Hope and the others had stayed till the round sun 

lighted them bedward. 



TOPEK-NA-FUOSICH. 29 

Tliej of the lovely aurora, but these of the lovelier 

women 
Spoke — of noble ladies and rustic girls, their 

partners. 
Turned to them Hewson, the chartist, the poet, 

the eloquent speaker. 
Sick of the very names of your Lady Augustas 

and Floras 
Am I, as ever I was of the dreary botanical 

titles 
Of the exotic plants, their antitypes, in the hot- 

house : 
Roses, violets, lilies for me ! the out-of-door beau- 
ties ; ' 
Meadow and woodland sweets, forget-me-nots and 

heartsease ! 
Pausing awhile, he proceeded anon, for none 

made answer. 
0, if our high-born girls knew only the grace, 

the attraction, 



30 THE BOTHIE OF 

Labor, and labor alone, can add to the beauty of 
women, 

Truly the milliner's trade would quickly, I think, 
be at discount. 

All the waste and loss in silk and satin be saved 
us. 

Saved for purposes truly and widely produc- 
tive 

That's right, 

Take off your coat to it, Philip, cried Lindsay, 
outside in the garden, 

Lindsay, cigar-loving hero, the Piper, the Dialec- 
tician, 

Take off your coat to it, Philip. 

Well, well, said Hewson, resuming ; 

Laugh if you please at my novel economy ; listen 
to this, though ; 

As for myself, and apart from economy wholly, 
believe me, 

Never I properly felt the relation of man to woman. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 31 

Though to the dancing-master I went, perforce, 
for a quarter, 

"Wliere in dismal quadrille, were good-looking girls 
in plenty, 

Though, too, school-girl cousins were mine — a 
bevy of beauties, — 

Never (of course you will laugh, but of course all 
the same I shall say it,) 

Never, believe me, revealed itself to me the 
sexual glory, 

Till in some village fields in holidays now getting 
stupid. 

One day sauntering ' long and listless,' as Tenny- 
son has it, 

Long and listless strolling, ungainly in hobbadi- 
^ boyhood, "^ 

Chanced it my eye fell aside on a capless, bonnet- 
less maiden, 

Bending with three-pronged fork in a garden up- 
rooting potatoes. 

■ Wf a. Vv 



32 THE BOTHIE OF 

Was it the air ? who can say ? or herself, or the 

charm of the labor ? 
But a new thing was in me ; and longing delicious 

possessed me, 
Longing to take her and lift her, and put her 

away from her slaving : 
"Was it to clasp her in lifting, or was it to lift her 

by clasping, 
Was it embracing or aiding was most in my mind ; 

hard question ! 
But a new thing was in me, I too was a youth 

among maidens : 
Was it the air, who can say ? but in part 't was 

the charm of the labor. 
I was too awkward, too shy, a great deal, be as- 
sured, for advances, 
Shyly I shambled away, stopping oft, but afraid 

of returning. 
Shambled obliquely away, with furtive occasional 

sidelook, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 33 

Long, though listless no more, in mj awkward 
hobbadiaojhood. /r . 

Still, though a new thing was in me, though vernal 
emotion, the secret, 

Yes, amid prurient talk, the unimparted mysteri- 
ous secret 

Long, the growing distress, and celled-up dishonor 
of boyhood. 

Recognized now took its place, a relation, oh bhss ! 
unto others ; 

Though now the poets, whom love is the key to, 
revealed themselves to me. 

And in my dreams by Miranda, her Ferdinand, 
sat I unwearied. 

Though all the fuss about girls, the giggling, and 
toying, and coying. 

Were not so strange as they had been, so incom- 
prehensible purely ; 

Still, as before, (and as now,) balls, dances, and 
evening parties, 

3 



34 THE BOTHIE OF 

Shooting with bows, going shopping together, and 

hearing them singing, 
Danghng beside them, and turning the leaves on 

the dreary piano, 
Offering unneeded arms, performing dull farces of 

escort. 
Seemed like a sort of unnatural up-in-the-air bal- 
loon-work, 
(Or what to me is as hateful, a riding about in a 

carriage,) 
Utter divorcement from work, mother earth, and 

objects of living. 
As mere gratuitous trifling in presence of business 

and duty, 
As does the turning aside of the tourist to look at 

a landscape 
Seem in the steamer or coach to the merchant in 

haste for the city. 
Hungry and fainting for food you ask me to join 

you in snapping — 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 35 

What but a pink-paper comfit, with motto roman- 
tic inside it ? 

Wishing to stock me a garden, I 'm sent to a table 
of nosegays ; 

Pretty, I see it, and sweet ; but they hardly would 
grow in my borders. 

Better a crust of black bread than a mountain of 
paper-confections, 

Better a daisy in earth than a dahlia cut and 
gathered, 

Better a cowslip with root than a prize carnation 
without it. 



That I allow, said Adam. 

But he with the bit in his teeth, — scarce 
Breathed a brief moment, and hurried exultingly 

on with his rider, 
Far over hillock, and rvinnel, and bramble, away in 
the champaign, 



86 THE BOTHIE OF 

Snorting defiance and force, the white foam fleck- 
ing his quarters, 

Kein hanging loose to his neck, and head project- 
ed before him. 



Oh, if they knew and considered, unhappy ones ! 

oh, could the J see, could 
But for a moment discern, how the blood of true 

gallantry kindles, 
How the old knightly religion, the chivalry semi- 
quixotic 
Stirs in the veins of a man at seeing some delicate 

woman 
Serving him, toihng — for him, and the world ; 

some tenderest girl, now 
Over-weighted, expectant, of him, is it ? who shall, 

if only 
Duly her burden be hghtened, not wholly removed 

from her, mind you, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 37 

Lightened if but by the love, the devotion man 
only can offer, 

Grand on her pedestal rise as -urn-bearing statue 
of Hellas ; — 

Oh, could they feel at such moments how man's 
heart, as into Eden 

Carried anew, seems to see, like the gardener of 
earth uncorrupted, 

Eve from the hand of her Maker advancuig, an 
helpmeet for him. 

Eve from his own flesh taken, a spirit restored to 
his spirit, 

Spirit but not spirit only, himself whatever him- 
self is. 

Unto the mystery's end sole helpmate meet to be 
with him ; — 

Oh if they saw it and knew it ; we soon should see 
them abandon 

Boudoir, toilet, carriage, drawing-room, and ball- 
room, 



38 THE BOTHIE OF 

Satin for worsted exchange, gros-de-naples for 
linsej-woolsej, 

Sandals of silk for clogs, for health lackadaisical 
fancies ! 

So, feel women, not dolls ; so feel the sap of 
existence 

Circulate up through their roots from the far-awaj 
centre of all things, 

Circulate up from the depths to the bud on the 
twig that is topmost ! 

Yes, we should see them delighted, delighted our- 
selves in the seeing. 

Bending with blue cotton gown skirted-up over 
striped linsey-woolsey. 

Milking the kine in the field, hke Rachel^ water- 
ing cattle, 

Rachel, when at the well the predestined beheld 
and kissed her, 

Or, Avith pail upon head, like Dora beloved of 
Alexis, 



TOPEK-NA-FUOSICH. 



Comelj, Tvith well-poised pail over neck arching 

soft to the shoulders, 
Comelj in gracefuUest act, one arm uplifted to 

stay it. 
Home from the river or pump moving stately and 

calm to the laundry ; 
Aye, doing household work, as many sweet girls 

I have looked at, 
Needful household work, which some one, after 

all, must do, 
Needful, graceful therefore, as washing, cooking, 

scouring. 
Or, if you please, with the fork in the garden 

uprooting potatoes. — 
Or — high-kilted perhaps, cried Luidsay, at 

last successful, 
Lindsay, this long time swelling with scorn and 

pent-up fury. 
Or high-kilted perhaps, as once at Dundee I saw 

them. 



40 THE BOTHIE OF 

Petticoats up to the knees, or, it might be, a little 

bit higher, 
Matching their lilj-white legs with the clothes that 

thej trod in the wash-tub ! 
Laughter loud ensued ; and seeing the Tutor 

embarrassed, 
It was from them, I suppose, said Arthur, smiling 

sedately, 
Lindsay learnt the tune we all have learnt from 

Lindsay, 
For oli^ he iva% a roguey^ the Piper o' Bun- 
dee. 
Laughter ensued again ; and the Tutor still 

slightly embarrassed. 
Picked at the fallen thread, and commenced a 

reply to Hewson. 
There 's truth in what you say, though truly 

much distorted ; 
These, I think, no less than other agaceries, 

cloy one ; 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 41 

Still there 's truth, I own, I perfectly understand 

you. 
While the Tutor was gathering his thoughts, 

continued Arthur, 
Is not all this just the same that one hears at 

common-room breakfasts. 
Or perhaps Trinity wines, about Gothic buildings 

and Beauty ? 
And with a start from the sofa came Hobbes ; 

with a cry from the sofa. 
There where he lay, the great Hobbes, contem- 
plative, corpulent, witty, 
Author forgotten and silent of currentest phrase 

and fancy, 
Mute and exuberant by turns, a fountain at 

intervals playing, 
Mute and abstracted, or strong and abundant as 

rain in the tropics ; 
Studious ; careless of dress ; inobservant ; by 

smooth persuasions 



42 THE BOTHIE OF 

Lately decoyed into kilt on example of Hope and 

the Piper, 
Hope an Antinous mere, Hyperion of calves the 

Piper. 
Beautiful ! cried he upleaping, analogy perfect 

to madness ! 
inexhaustible source of thought, shall I call 

it, or fancy ! 
"Wonderful spring, at whose touch doors fly, what 

a vista disclosing ! 
Exquisite germ ! Ah no, crude fingers shall not 

soil thee ; 
Kest, lovely pearl, in my brain, and slowly mature 

in the oyster. 
While at the exquisite pearl they were laugh- 
ing and corpulent oyster, 
Ah, could they only be taught, he resumed, by a 

Pugin of women. 
How even churning and washing, the dairy, the 

scullery duties, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 43 

Wait but a touch to redeem and convert them to 

charms and attractions, 
Scrubbing requires for true grace but frank and 

artistical handling, 
And the removal of slops to be ornamentally 

treated. 
Philip who speaks like a book, retiring and 

pausing he added, 
Philip here, who speaks — like a folio, saj'st 

thou, Piper ? 
Phihp shall write us a book, a treatise upon Tlte 

Laivs of 
Arcliitectural Beauty in Application to Wom- 
en ; 
Illustrations, of course, and a Parker's Glossary 

pendent, 
"Where shall in specimen seen be the sculliony 

s tumpy-columnar 
(Which to a reverent taste is perhaps the most 

moving of any,) 



44 THE BOTHIE OF 

Rising to grace of true woman in English the 
Earlj and Later, 

Charming us still in fulfilUng the Richer and 
Loftier stages, 

Lost, ere we end, in the Lady-Debased and the 
Ladj-Flambojant : 

Thence why in satire and spite too merciless on- 
ward pursue her 

Hither to hideous close, Modern-Florid, modern- 
fine-lady ? 

No, I will leave it to you, my Philip, my Pugin of 
women. 
Leave it to Arthur, said Adam, to think of, 
and not to play with. 

You are young, you know, he said, resuming to 
Philip, 

You are young, he proceeded, with something of 
fervor to Hewson, 

You are a boy ; when you grow a man, you *11 
find things alter. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 45 

You will learn to seek the good, to scorn the at- 
tractive, 

Scorn all mere cosmetics, as now of rank and 
fashion, 

Dehcate hands, and wealth, so then of poverty 
also. 

Poverty truly attractive, more truly, I bear you 
witness. 

Good, wherever found, you will choose, be it hum- 
ble or stately, 

Happy if only you find, and finding do not lose 
it. 

Yes, we must seek what is good, it always and it 
only ; 

Not indeed absolute good, good for us, as is said 
in the Ethics, 

That which is good for ourselves, our proper 
selves, our best selves ; 

This if you find in another, desert not, whatever 
you call it. 



46 THE BOTHIE OF 

Call it a likeness of souls, call it anything else 

you fancy, 
Perfect response, if you please, to what would in 

us be most perfect, 
Answer most searching to what in ourselves is 

profoundest and shyest : 
This if you find in another, desert not, wherever 

you find it, 
Happy if only jou find, and finding do not lose 

it! 
Ah, you have much to learn, we can't know all at 

twenty. 
You are a boy, as I said ; when you grow a man, 

you '11 say so. 
This was the answer he had from the eager 

impetuous Hewson : 
Yes, I say it now, I know I 'm young ; and know, 

too. 
How the grown-up man puts-by the youthful in- 
stinct, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 47 

Learns to deal with the good, but what good is, 
discerns not ; 

Learns to handle the helm, but breaks the com- 
pass to steer by ; 

In the intuitive loses far more than his gain dis- 
cursive ; 

Or, in the lingo you love, the lingo emphatic of 
Aldrich, 

Gets up the form syllogistic, ignoring the premiss 
and matter. 
While he spoke, Adam rose, sat again, and 
dropping his eyelids 

Bowed his face in his hands, and rested his hands 
on the table ; 

So for a minute he sat — the one first minute of 
silence ; 

Looked up at last, and laughed, and answered, 
speaking serenely. 

Speaking serenely, but still with a moisture about 
the eyehds. 



48 THE BOTHIE OF 

Truly, queer fellow is Hewson ! for bidding liira 

choose good only 
Thus to upbraid me with years, chill years that 

are thick'ning to forty. 
Nay, never talk ! hsten now ! What I say you 

can't apprehend — 
No, you are looking elsewhere. You will not 

ever, I fancy — 
Till you ignore your premiss, repairing the loss by 

a new one, 
Till you discard your compass, if not for instruc- 
tion in steering. 
Yet to purchase a better and pay, I suppose, for 

the purchase. 
So much in repartee — but let us return to the 

question. 
Partly you rest on truth, old truth, the duty of 

Duty, 
Partly on error, you long for equality. 

Aye, cried the Piper, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 49 

That 's the sore place, that confounded Egalite, 

French manufacture, 
He is the same as the Chartist who made an ad- 
dress in Ireland, 
What, mid is not one man, fellow~7nen, as good 

as another? 
Faith, replied Pat, and a deal letter too ! 

So rattled the Piper : 
But undisturbed in his tenor, the Tutor. 

Partly in error 
Seeking equality, is not one tvoman as good as 

another f 
I with the Irishman answer Yes, better too; the 

poorer 
Better full oft than richer, than loftier better the 

lower. 
Irrespective of wealth and of poverty, pain and 

enjoyment, 
Women all have their duties, the one as well as 

the other ; 



50 



THE BOTHIE OF 



Are all duties alike ? Do all alike fulfil them ? 

It is to these we must look, and in these we are 
not on a level ; 

Neither in these, nor in gifts, nor attainments, nor 
requirements. 

However noble the dream of equality, mark you, 
Phihp, 

Nowhere equality reigns in God's sublime crea- 
tions. 

Star is not equal to star, nor blossom the same as 
blossom ; 

Herb is not equal to herb, any more than planet 
to planet. 

True, that the plant should be rooted in earth, I 
granted you wholly. 

And that the daisy in earth surpasses the cut 
carnation. 

Only, the rooted carnation surpasses the rooted 
daisy : 

There is one glory of daisies, another of carna- 
tions ; 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 51 

Foolisli were budding carnation, in gay parterre 
by greenhouse, 

Should it decline to accept the nurture the garden- 
er gives it, 

Should it refuse to expand to sun and genial sum- 
mer. 

Simply because the field-daisy, that grows in the 
grass-plat beside it. 

Cannot, for some cause or other, develope and be 
a carnation. 

Would not the daisy itself petition its scrupulous 
neighbour ? 

Up, grow, bloom, and forget me ; be beautiful even 
to proudness. 

E'en for the sake of myself and other poor daisies 
like me. 

Rooted in earth should it be, carnation alike or 
daisy, 

That I grant, and refer you to Shakspeare on 
gillyflowers, 



52 THE BOTHIE OF 

Where in the Wmter's Tale Leontes Perdita ques- 
tions. 

Education and manners, accomplishments, refine- 
ments, 

Waltz, peradventure, and polka, the knowledge of 
music and drawing, 

All these things are Nature's, to Nature dear and 
precious. 

We must all do something, man, woman alike, I 
own it ; 

Yes, but woman-and-man in ladj-and-gentleman is 
not 

Lost, extinct ; it lives ; if not, God help them, 
change them ! 

We must all do something, and in mj judgment 
do it 

In our station ; independent of it, but not regard- 
less ; 

Holding it, not for enjoyment, but because we 
cannot change it. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 53 

Ah ! replied Philip, Alas ! the noted phrase of 
the prayer book, 

Doing our duty in that state of life to which God 
has called us, 

Seems to me ahvays to mean, when the little rich 
boys say it. 

Standing in velvet frock by mama's brocaded 
flounces, 

Eying her gold-fastened book and the chain and 
watch at her bosom, 

Seems to me always to mean. Eat, drink, and never 
mind others. 
Nay, replied Adam, smihng, so far your econo- 
my leads me. 

Velvet and gold and brocade are nowise to my 
fancy ; 

Benefit of trade, I see, is mockery vile and delu- 
sion. 

Nay, he added, beheve me, I like luxurious 
livino: 



54 THE BOTHIE OF 

Even as little as you, and grieve in my soul not 

seldom, 
More for the rich indeed than the poor, who are 

not so guilty. 
Ah ! replied Phihp again, But as for the rest 

of the story. 
Truly I see a good deal in the daisy-carnation 

fable ; 
Though I should like to be clear what standing in 

the earth means. 
But, as you said to me when this long discussion 

started. 
There 's truth in what you say, though I donH 

quite understand you. 
So the discussion ended ; and Arthur rose up 

smihng, 
Now, quoth he, that Philip dare n't bully you 

more, it is my turn. 
How will my argument please you ? To-morrow 

we start on our travel. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 55 

And took up Hope the chorus. 

To-morrow we start on our travel. 

Lo the weather is golden, the weather-glass, say 
they, rising ; 

Four weeks here have we read ; four weeks will 
we read hereafter ; 

Three weeks hence will return and revisit our dis- 
mal classics. 

Three weeks hence readjust our visions of classes 
and classics. 

Fare ye well, meantime, forgotten, unnamed, un- 
dreamt of 

History, Science, and Poets ! lo, deep in dustiest 
cupboard, 

Thookydid, Oloros' son, Halimoosian, here lieth 
buried ! 

Slumber in Liddell-and-Scott, musical chaff of 
Old Athens, 

Dishes, and fishes, bird, beast, and sesquipedahan 
blackguard ! 



56 



THE BOTHIE OF 



Sleep, weary Ghosts, be at peace, and abide in 

your lexicon-limbo ! 
Sleep, as in lava for ages your Herculanean 

kindred, 
Sleep, and for aught that I care, ' the sleep that 

knows no waking,' 
^schylus, Sophocles, Homer, Herodotus, Pindar, 

and Plato. 
Three weeks hence be it time to exhume our 

dreary classics. 
And in the chorus joined Lindsay, the Piper, 

the Dialectician. 
Three weeks hence we return to the sJwj? and the 

tvash-hand-standrhason* 
Three weeks hence unbury TIdcJcsides and hai7y 

Aldrich. 
But the Tutor enquired, the grave man, nick- 
named Adam, 

Cottage and matutine. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 57 

Who are they that go, and when do they promise 
returning ? 
And a silence ensued, and the Tutor himself 
continued, 

Airhe remains, I presume, he continued, and 
Hobbes, and Hewson, 

Lindsay and Arthur and Hope to verify Black 
are a quorum. 
Answer was made him by Philip, the poet, the 
eloquent speaker. 

Airlie remains, I presume, was the answer, and 
Hobbes, peradventure ; 

Tarry let Airlie May-fairly, and Hobbes, brief- 
kilted hero, 

Tarry let Hobbes in kilt, and Airlie ' abide in his 
breaches ; ' 

Tarry let these, and read, four Pindars apiece an 
it like them ! 

Weary of reading am I, and weary of walks pre- 
scribed us ; 



58 THE BOTHIE OF 

Weary of Ethic and Logic, of Rhetoric yet more 

weary, 
Eager to range over heather unfettered of gilhe 

and marquis, 
I will away with the rest, and bury my hairy 

'Tottle. 
And to the Tutor rejoining. Be mindful ; you 

go up at Easter, 
This was the answer returned by Phihp, the Pu- 

gin of Women. 
Good are the Ethics, I wis ; good absolute, not 

for me, though ; 
Good too Logic, of course ; in itself, but not in 

fine weather. 
Three weeks hence, with the rain, to Prudence, 

Temperance, Justice, 
Virtues I^Ioral and Mental, with Latin prose in- 
cluded, 
Three weeks hence we return, to cares of classes 

and classics. 



TOPEE-NA-FUOSICH. 59 

I will away with the rest, and burj my hairy 

'Tottle. 
But the Tutor enquired, the grave man, nick- 
named Adam, 
Where do you mean to go, and whom do you 

mean to visit ? 
And he was answered by Hope, the Viscount, 

His Honor, of Hay. 
Kitcat, a Trinity coach, has a party at Drumna- 

drochet, 
Up on the side of Loch Ness, in the beautiful 

valley of Urquhart ; 
Mainwaring says they will lodge us, and feed us, 

and give us a lift too : 
Only they talk ere long to remove to Glenmori- 

son. Then at 
Castleton high in Braemar, strange home, with 

his earliest party, 
Harrison, fresh from the schools, has James and 

Jones and Lauder. 



60 THE BOTHIE OF 

Thirdly, a Cambridge man I know, Smith, a senior 

wrangler, 
With a mathematical score hangs-out at Inve- 

rarj. 
Finally too, from the kilt and the sofa said 

Hobbes in conclusion, 
Finally Philip must hunt for that home of the 

probable poacher. 
Hid in the braes of Lochaber, the bothie of 

What-did-he-call-it. 
Hopeless of you and of us, of gilHes and mar- 

quisses hopeless, 
Weary of Ethic and Logic, of Rhetoric yet more 

weary. 
There shall he, smit by the charm of a lovely po- 

tato-uprooter, 
Study the question of sex in the Bothie of ^Yhat- 

did-he-call-it. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 61 



III. 

Namque canebat uti 



So in the golden morning they parted and went 
to the westward. 

And in the cottage with Airlie and Hobbes re- 
mained the Tutor ; 

Reading nine hours a day with the Tutor Hobbes 
and Airlie ; 

One between bathing and breakfast, and six be- 
fore it was dinner, 

(Breakfast at eight, at four, after bathing again, 
the dinne'r,) 

Finally, two after walking and tea, from nine to 
eleven. 



V 

62 THE BOTHIE OF 



Airlie and Adam at evening their quiet stroll to- 
gether 

Took on the terrace-road, with the western hills 
before them ; 

Hobbes, only rarely a third, now and then in the 
cottage remaining, 

E'en after dinner, eupeptic, would rush yet again 
to his reading ; 

Other times, stung by the oestrum of some swift- 
working conception. 

Banged, tearing-on in his fury, an lo-cow, through 
the mountains. 

Heedless of scenery, heedless of bogs, and of 
perspiration. 

Far on the peaks, unwitting, the hares and ptar- 
migan starting. 
And the three weeks past, the three weeks, 
three days over. 

Neither letter had come, nor casual tidings 
any. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICII. 



63 



And the pupils grumbled, the Tutor became 

uneasy, 
And in the golden weather they wondered, and 

watched to the westward. 
There is a stream, I name not its name, lest in- 
quisitive tourist 
Hunt it, and make it a lion, and get it at last into 

guide-books, " 
Springing far off from a loch unexplored in the 

folds of great mountains, 
Falling two miles through rowan and stunted alder, 

enveloped 
Then for four more in a forest of pine, where 

broad and ample 
Spreads to convey it the glen with heathery slopes 

on both sides : 
Broad and fair the stream, with occasional falls 

and narrows ; 
But, where the lateral glen approaches the vale of 

the river. 



64 THE BOTHIE OF 

Met and blocked by a huge interposing mass of 

granite, 
Scarce bj a channel deep-cut, raging up, and ra- 
ging onward. 
Forces its flood through a passage, so narrow, a 

lad J -would step it. 
There, across the great rocky wharves, a wooden 

bridge goes, 
Carrying a path to the forest ; below, three 

hundred yards, say, 
Lower in level some twenty-five feet, through flats 

of shingle, 
Stepping-stones and a cart-track cross in the open 

valley. 
But in the interval here the boiling, pent-up 

water 
Frees itself by a final descent, attaining a 

basin, 
Ten feet wide and eighteen long, with whiteness 

and fury 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 65 

Occupied partly, but mostly pellucid, pure, a 
• mirror ; 

Beautiful there for the color derived from green 
rocks under ; 

Beautiful, most of all, where beads of foam up- 
rising 

Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue 
of the stillness. 

Cliff over cHff for its sides, with rowan and pendent 
birch boughs, 

Here it lies, unthought of above at the bridge and 
pathway, 

Still more concealed from below by wood and 
rocky projection. 

You are shut in, left alone with yourself and per- 
fection of water, 

Hid on all sides, left alone with yourself and the 
goddess of bathing. 
Here, the pride of the plunger, you stride the 
fall and clear it ; 

5 



66 THE BOTHIE OF 

Here, the deliglit of the bather, you roll in beaded 
sparklings. 

Here into pure green depth drop down from lofty 
ledges. 
Hither, a month agone, they had come, and dis- 
covered ; hither 

(Long a design, but long unaccountably left unac- 
comphshed), 

Leaving the well-known bridge and pathway above 
to the forest, 

Turning below from the track of the carts over 
stone and shingle, 

Piercing a wood, and skirting a narrow and natural 
causeway 

Under the rocky wall that hedges the bed of the 
streamlet, 

Rounded a craggy point, and saw on a sudden be- 
fore them 

Slabs of rock, and a tiny beach, and perfection of 
water, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 67 

Picture-like beauty, seclusion sublime, and the 

goddess of bathing. 
There they bathed, of course, and Arthur, the glo- 
ry of headers, 
Leapt from the ledges with Hope, he twenty feet, 

he thirty ; 
There, overbold, great Hobbes from a ten-foot 

height descended. 
Prone, as a quadruped, prone with hands and feet 

protending ; 
There in the sparkling champagne, ecstatic, they 

shrieked and shouted. 
" Hobbes's gutter " the Piper entitles the spot, 

profanely, 
Hope " the Glory " would have, after Arthur, the 

glory of headers : 
But, for before they departed, in shy and fugitive 

reflex 
Here in the eddies and there did the splendor of 

Jupiter glimmer, 



68 THE BOTHIE OF 

Adam adjudged it the name of Hesperus, star of 

the evening. 
Hither, to Hesperus, now, the star of evening 

above them, 
Come in their lonelier walk the pupils twain and 

Tutor ; 
Turned from the track of the carts, and passing 

the stone and shingle, 
Piercing the wood, and skirting the stream by the 

natural causeway, 
Rounded .the craggy point, and now at their ease 

looked up ; and 
Lo, on the rocky ledge, regardant, the Glory of 

headers, 
Lo, on the beach, expecting the plunge, not cigar- 
less, the Piper. — 
And they looked, and wondered, incredulous, 

looking yet once more. 
Yes, it was he, on the ledge, bare-limbed, an 

Apollo, down-gazing, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 69 

Eyeing one moment the beauty, the life, ere he 
flung himself in it, 

Eyeing through eddying green waters the green- 
tinting floor underneath them, 

Eyeing the bead on the surface, the bead, like a 
cloud, rising to it, 

Drinking-in, deep in his soul, the beautiful hue and 
the clearness, 

Arthur, the shapely, the brave, the unboasting, the 
glory of headers ; 

Yes, and with fragrant weed, by his knapsack, 
spectator and critic, 

Seated on slab by the margin, the Piper, the Cloud- 
compeller. 
Yes, they were come ; were restored to the 
party, its grace and its gladness. 

Yes, were here, as of old ; the light-giving orb of 
the household, 

Arthur, the shapely, the tranquil, the strength-and 
contentment-difiusing, 



70 THE BOTHIE OF 

In the pure presence of whom none could quarrel 

longj nor be pettish, 
And, the gay fountain of mirth, their own dear 

genial Piper. 
Yes, they were come, were here : but Hewson 

and Hope — where they then ? 
Are they behind, travel-sore, or ahead, going 

straight, by the pathway ? 
And from his seat and cigar spoke the Piper, 

the Cloud-compeller. 
Hope with the uncle abideth for shooting. Ah 

me, were I with him ! 
Ah, good boy that I am, to have stuck to my 

word and my reading ! 
Good, good boy to be here, far away, who might 

be at Balloch ! 
Only one day to have staid who might have been 

welcome for seven. 
Seven whole days in castle and forest — gay in 

the mazy 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 71 

Moving, imbibing the rosy, and pointing a gun at 

the horny ! 
And the Tutor impatient, expectant, inter- 
rupted, 
Hope with the uncle, and Hewson — with him? or 

where have you left him ? 
And from his seat and cigar spoke the Piper, 

the Cloud-compeller. 
Hope with the uncle, and Hewson — Why Hewson 

we left in Rannoch, 
By the lochside and the pines, in a farmer's house, 

— reflecting, — 
Helping to shear,* and dry clothes, and it may be, 

uproot potatoes. 
Studying the question of sex, though not at What- 

did-he-call-it. 
And the Tutor's countenance fell, perplexed, 

dumb-founded 



Reap. 



72 THE BOTHIE OF 

Stood he — slow and -with pain disengaging jest 
from earnest. 
He is not far from home, said Arthur from the 
water, 
He will be with us to-morrow, at latest, or the next 
day. 
And he was even more reassured by the Piper's 
rejoinder. 
Can he have come by the mail, and have got to 
the cottage before us ? 
So to the cottage they went, and Philip was 
not at the cottage ; 
But by the mail was a letter from Hope, who liim- 
self was to follow. 
Two whole days and nights succeeding brought 
not Philip, 
Two whole days and nights exhausted not question 
and story. 
For it was told, the Piper narrating, corrected 
of Arthur, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 73 

Often by word corrected, more often by smile and 

motion, 
How they had been to lona, to Staffa, to Skye, to 

Culloden, 
Seen Loch Awe, Loch Tay, Loch Fyne, Loch 

Ness, Loch Arkaig, 
Been up Ben-nevis, Ben-more, Ben-cruachan, Ben- 

muick-dhui ; 
How they had walked, and eaten, and drunken, 

and slept in kitchens. 
Slept upon floors of kitchens, and tasted the real 

Glen-livat, 
Walked up perpendicular hills, and also down 

them. 
Hither and thither had been, and this and that 

had witnessed. 
Left not a thing to be done, and had not a hrown 

remaining. 
For it was told withal, he telling, and he correct- 



74 THE BOTHIE OF 

How they had met, they beheved, with St. John, 

the muckle-hart-slayer, 
How in the race they had run, and beaten the 

gilhes of Rannoch ; 
How in forbiden glens, in Mar and midmost 

Athol, 
Philip insisting hotly, and Arthur and Hope com- 

phant, 
They had defied the keepers; the Piper alone 

protesting, 
Liking the fun, it was plain, in his heart, but 

tender of game-law ; 
Yea, too, in Mealy glen, the heart of Lochiel's 

fair forest, 
Wliere Scotch firs are darkest and amplest, and 

intermingle 
Grandly with rowan and ash — in Mar you have 

no ashes, 
There the pine is alone or relieved by birch and 

alder — 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 75 

How in Mealy fair, while stags were starting be- 
fore — they 

Made the watcher believe they were guests from 
Achnacarry. 



And there w^as told moreover, he telling, the 
other correcting, 

Often by word, more often by mute significant 
motion. 

Much of the Cambridge coach and his pupils at 
Inverary, 

Huge barbarian pupils, expanded in infinite se- 
ries, 

Firing-off signal guns (great scandal), from win- 
dow to window 

(For they were lodging perforce in distant and 
numerous houses) 

Signals, when, one retiring, another should go to 
the Tutor : — 



76 THE BOTHIE OF 

Much too of Kitcat, of course, and the party at 

Drumnadrochet, 
Mainwaring, Folej, and Fraser, their idleness 

horrid and dog-cart ; 
Drumnadrochet was seedy ^ Glenmorison adequate^ 

but at 
Castleton, high in Braemar, were the cUppingest 

places for bathing, 
One by the bridge in the village, indecent, the 

Town-Hall christened. 
Where howbeit had Lauder been bathing, and 

Harrison also, 
Harrison even, the Tutor, another hke Hesperus 

here, and 
Up the water of Eye, half-a-dozen at least, all 

stunners. 
And it was told, the Piper narrating and Ar- 
thur correcting, 
Coloring he, dilating, magniloquent, glorying in 

picture, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 77 

He to matter-of-fact still softening, paring, abat- 
ing, 

He to the great might-have-been upsoaring, sub- 
lime and ideal, 

He to the merest it-was restricting, diminishing, 
dwarfing. 

River to streamlet reducing, and fall to slope sub- 
duing, 

So was it told, the Piper narrating, corrected of 
Arthur, 

How under Linn of Dee, where over rocks, be- 
tween rocks. 

Freed from prison the river comes, pouring, roll- 
ing, rushing, 

Then at a sudden descent goes sliding, gliding, 
unbroken, 

Falling, sliding, gliding, in narrow space col- 
lected. 

Save for a curl at the end where the curve re- 
joins the level. 



78 THE BOTHIE OF 

Save for a ripple at last, a sheeted descent un- 
broken, — 

How to the element offering their bodies, down- 
shooting the fall, they 

Mingled themselves with the flood and the force 
of imperious water. 

• And it was told too, Arthur narrating, the Pi- 
per correcting. 

How, as one comes to the level, the weight of the 
downward impulse 

Carries the head under water, delicious, ineffable ; 
how the 

Piper, here ducked and blinded, got stray, and 
borne-off by the current 

Wounded his lily-white thighs, below, at the crag- 
gy corner. 
And it was told, the Piper resuming, corrected 
of Arthur, 

More by word than by motion, change ominous, 
noted of Adam, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 79 

How at the floating-bridge of Laggan, one morn- 
ing at sunrise, 
Came in default of the ferrjman out of her bed a 

brave lassie ; 
And, as Philip and she together were turning the 

handles, 
By which the chain is w^ound that works it across 

the water. 
Hands intermingled with hands, and at last, as 

they stept from the boatie. 
Turning about, they saw lips also mingle with 

lips ; but 
That was flatly denied and loudly exclaimed at 

by Arthur : 
How at the General's hut, the Inn by the Fall of 

Foyers, 
Where o'er the loch looks at you the summit of 

Mealfourvonie, 
How here too he was hunted at morning, and 

found in the kitchen 



80 THE EOTHIE OF 

"Watching the porridge being made, pronouncing 

them* smoked for certain, 
Watching the porridge being made, and asking 

the lassie that made them, 
What was the Gaelic for girl, and what was the 

Gaehc for pretty ; 
How in confusion he shouldered his knapsack, yet 

blusliingly stammered, 
Waving a hand to the lassie, that blushingly bent 

o'er the porridge 
Something outlandish — Slan-something, Slan leat, 

he believed, Caleg Looach,f 
That was the Gaelic it seemed for "I bid you 

good-bye, bonnie lassie ; " 
Arthur allowed it was true, not of Philip, but of 

the Piper. 
And it was told by the Piper, while Arthur 

looked out at the window, 

* Porridge is plural. t Caileag Laoghach. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 81 

How in thunder and rain — it is wetter far to the 
westward, 

Thunder and rain and wind, losing heart and 
road, they were welcomed, 

AYelcomed, and three days detained at a farm by 
the lochside of Eannoch ; 

How in the three days' detention was Philip ob- 
served to be smitten. 

Smitten by golden-haired Katie, the youngest and 
comeliest daughter : 

"Was he not seen, even Arthur observed it, from 
breakfast to bedtime. 

Following her motions with eyes ever brightening, 
softening ever ? 

Did he not fume, fret, and fidget to find her stand 
waiting at table ? 

"Was he not one mere St. Vitus' dance, when he 
saw her at nightfall 

Go through the rain to fetch peat, through beat- 
ing rain to the peat-stack ? 



82 THE BOTHIE OF 

How it SO happened a dance was given by Grant 

of Glenurchie, 
And with the farmer they went as the farmer's 

guests to attend it, 
Philip staid dancing till daylight, — and ever- 
more with Katie ; 
How the whole next afternoon he was with her 

away in the shearing,* 
And the next morning ensuing was found in the 

ingle beside her 
Kneeling, picking the peats from her apron, — 

blowing together. 
Both, between laughing, with lips distended, to 

kindle the embers ; 
Lips were so near to lips, one living cheek to 

another, — 
Though, it was true, he was shy, strangely shy, — 

yet it was not nature, 

* Reaping. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 83 

Was not nature, the Piper averred, there shouldn't 

be kissing ; 
Then when they packed up their knapsack at 

noon, and proposed to be starting, 
Philip professed he was lame, would leave in the 

morning and follow ; 
Follow he did not ; do burns, when you go up a 

glen, follow after ? 
Follow he had not, nor left ; do needles leave the 

loadstone ? 
Nay too, they turned after starting, and looked 

through the trees at the corner, 
Lo, on the rocks by the lake there he was, the 

lassie beside him, 
Lo, there he was, stooping by her, and helping 

with stones from the water 
Safe in the wind to keep down the clothes she 

would spread for the drying. 
There had they left him, and there, if Katie was 

there, was Philip, 



84 THE BOTHIE OF 

There drj^ng clothes, making fires, making love, 

getting on too by this time, 
Though he was shy, so exceedingly shy. 

You may say so, said Arthur, 
For the first time they had knoAvn with a peevish 

intonation, — 
Did not the Piper himself flirt more in a single 

evening, 
Namely, with Janet the elder, than Philip in all 

our sojourn ? 
Philip had staid, it was true ; the Piper was loth 

to depart too. 
Harder his parting from Janet than e'en from the 

keeper at Balloch ; 
And it was certain that PhiHp was lame. 

Yes, in liis excuses, 
Answered the Piper, indeed ! — 

Nay, truly, said Hobbes, interposing, 
Did you not say she was seen every day in her 

beauty and bedgown 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 85 

Doing plain household work, as washing, cooking, 
scouring ? 

How could he help but love her ? nor lacked there 
of course the attraction 

That in a blue cotton print tucked up over strip- 
ed linsey-woolsej, 

Barefoot, barelegged, he beheld her, with arms 
bare up to the elbows. 

Bending with fork in her hand in a garden up- 
rooting potatoes ? 

Is not Katie as Rachel, and is not Philip a Ja- 
cob ? 

Truly Jacob, supplanting an hairy Highland 
Esau? 

Shall he not, love-entertained, feed sheep for the 
Laban of Rannoch ? 

happy patriarch he, the long servitude ended of 
wooing, 

If when he wake in the morning he find not a 
Leah beside him ! 



86 THE BOTHIE OF 

But the Tutor enquired, who had bit his lip to 

bleeding, 
How far off is the place ? who will guide me there 

to-morrow ? 
But by the mail, ere the morrow, came Hope, 

and brought new tidmgs ; 
Bound by Rannoch had come, and Philip was not 

at Rannoch ; 
He had left that noon, an hour ago. 

With the lassie ? — 
With her ? the Piper exclaimed, undoubtedly ! 

By great Jingo ! 
And upon that he arose, slapping both his thighs, 

like a hero. 
Partly, for emphasis only, to mark his conviction, 

but also 
Part, in delight at the fun, and the joy of eventful 

living. 
Really I did not enquire, answered Hope, but I 

hardly think it ; 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 87 

Janet, Piper, your friend, I saw, and she did n't 

say so, 
Though she asked a good deal about Phihp, and 

where he was gone to : 
One odd thing by the bye, he continued, befell me 

while with her ; 
Standing beside her, I saw^ a girl pass ; I thought 

I had seen her, 
Somewhat remarkable-looking, elsewhere ; and 

asked what her name was ; 
Elspie Mackaye, she answered, the daughter of 

David ! she 's stopping 
Just above there, with her uncle. And David 

Mackaye where lives he ? 
It ■ s away west, she replied, they call it Toper-na- 

fuosich. 



88 THE BOTHIE OF 



IV. 

Ut vidi, ut peril, ut me malus abstulit error. 

So in the golden weather they waited. But Philip 

came not. 
Sunday six days thence a letter arrived in his 

writing. — 
But, Muse, that encompassest Earth like the 

ambient ether, 
Swifter than steamer or railway or magical missive 

electric 
Belting like Ariel the sphere with the star-like 

trail of thy travel, 
Thou with thy Poet, to mortals mere post-office 

second-hand knowledge 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 89 

Leaving, wilt seek in the moorland of Rannoch 

the wandering hero. 
There is it, there, or in lofty Lochaber, where, 

silent up-heaving, 
Heaving from ocean to sky, and under snow-winds 

of September, 
Visibly whitening at morn to darken by noon in 

the shining, 
Rise on their mighty foundations the brethren 

huge of Bennevis ? 
There, or westward away, where roads are un- 
known to Loch Nevish, 
And the great peaks look abroad over Skye to the 

westermost islands ? 
There is it ? there ? or there ? we shall find our 

wandering hero ? 
Here, in Badenoch, here, in Lochaber anon, in 
Lochiel, in 
Knoydart, Croydart, Moydart, Morrer, and Ard- 
namurchan, 



90 THE BOTHIE OF 

Here I see him and here : I see him ; anon I lose 
him! 

Even as cloud passing subtly unseen from moun- 
tain to mountain, 

Leaving the crest of Benmore to be palpable next 
on BenvohrHch, 

Or hke to hawk of the hill which ranges and soars 
in its hunting, 

Seen and unseen bj turns, now here, now in ether 
eludent. 
"V^Tierefore like cloud of Benmore or hawk over- 
ranging the mountains, 

'\Mierefore in Badenoch drear, in lofty Lochaber, 
Lochiel, and 

Knojdart, Crojdart, Mojdart, ^lorrer, and Ard- 
namurchan, 

Wandereth he, who should either with Adam be 
studying logic, 

Or by the lochside of Rannoch on Katie his 
rhetoric using ; 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 91 

He who, his three weeks past, past now long ago, 

to the cottage 
Punctual promised return to cares of classes and 

classics, 
He who smit to the heart by that youngest come- 

liest daughter. 
Bent, unregardful of spies, at her feet, spreading 

clothes from her wash-tub ? 
Can it be with him through Badenoch dearv, 

Lochaber, Lochiel and 
Knoydart, Croydart, Moydart, Morrer, and Ard- 

namurchan. 
Can it be with him he beareth the golden-haired 

lassie of Eannoch ? 
This fierce furious walking — o'er mountain-top 

and moorland. 
Sleeping in shieling and bothie, with drover on 

hill-side sleeping. 
Folded in plaid, where sheep are strewn thicker 

than rocks by Loch Awen, 



92 THE BOTHIE OF 

This fierce furious travel unwearying, — cannot in 

truth be 
Merely the wedding tour succeeding the week of 

wooing ! 
No, wherever be Katie, with Philip she is not ; 

I see him, 
Lo, and he sitteth alone, and these are his words 

in the mountain. 
Souls of the dead, one fancies, can enter and be 

with the living ; 
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could 

go and uphold her ! 
Spirits escaped from the body can enter and be 

with the living, 
Entering unseen, and retiring unquestioned, they 

bring, do they feel too ? 
Joy, pure joy, as they mingle and mix inner es- 
sence with essence ; 
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could 

go and uphold her ! 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 93 

Jo J, pure joy, bringing -vvith them, and when they 
retire leaving after 

No cruel shame, no prostration, despondency; 
memories rather 

Sweet, happy hopes bequeathing. Ah ! wherefore 
not thus with the living ? 

"Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could 
go and uphold her ! 
Is it impossible, say you, these passionate fer- 
vent impulsions, 

These projections of spirit to spirit, these inward 
embraces, 

Should in strange ways, in her dreams should vis- 
it her, strengthen her, shield her ? 

Is it possible, rather, that these great floods of 
feeling 

Setting-in daily from me towards her should, im- 
potent wholly. 

Bring neither sound nor motion to that sweet 
shore they heave to ? 



94 THE BOTHIE OF 

Efflux here, and there no stir nor pulse of m- 

fluxl 
It must reverberate surelj, reverberate idlv, it 

may be. 
Yea, hath He set us our bounds TNhich we shall 

not pass, and cannot ? 
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could 

go and uphold her ! 
Surely, surely, when sleepless I lie in the moun- 
tain lamenting, 
Surely, surely, she hears in her dreams a voice 

' I am with thee,' 
Saying, 'although not with thee : behold, for we 

mated our spirits. 
Then, when we stood in the chamber, and knew 

not the words we were saying ; ' 
Yea, if she felt me within her, when not with one 

finger I touched her. 
Surely she knows it, and feels it, while sorrowing 

here in the moorland. 



TOrER-NA-FUOSICH. 95 

Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could 

go and uphold her ! 
Spirits with spirits commingle and separate ; 

lightly as winds do, 
Spice-laden South with the ocean-born Zephyr ; 

they mingle and sunder ; 
No sad remorses for them, no visions of horror 

and vileness ; 
Elements fuse and resolve, as affinity draws and 

repels them ; 
We, if we touch, must remain, if attracted, cohere 

to the ending, 
Guilty we are if we do not, and yet if we would 

we could not : 
Would I w^ere dead, I keep saying, that so I could 

go and uphold her. 
Surely the force that here sweeps me along in 

its violent impulse, 
Surely my strength shall be in her, my help and 

protection about her, 



96 THE BOTHIE OF 

Surelj in inner-sweet gladness and vigor of joy 

shall sustain her, 
Till, the brief winter o'er-past, her own true sap 

in the springtide 
Rise, and the tree I have bared be verdurous e'en 

as aforetime; 
Surely it may be, it should be, it must be. Yet 

ever and ever, 
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could 

go and uphold her ! 
No, wherever be Katie, with Phihp she is not : 

behold, for 
Here he is sitting alone, and these are his words 

in the mountain. 
And, at the farm on the lochside of Rannoch 

in parlour and kitchen 
Hark! there is music — yea, flowing of music, 

of milk, and of whiskey, 
Dancing and drinking, the young and the old, the 

spectators and actors, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 97 

Never not actors the young, and the old not al- 

waj spectators : 
Lo, I see piping and dancing ! and whom in the 

midst of the battle 
Cantering loudly along there, or look you, with 

arms uphfted 
AYhistling, and snapping his fingers, and seizing 

his gay-smiling Janet, 
Whom ? — whom else but the Piper ? the wary 

precognizant Piper, 
Who, for the love of gay Janet, and mindful of 

old invitation. 
Putting it quite as a duty and urging grave claims 

to attention. 
True to his night had crossed over : there goeth 

he, brimfull of music. 
Like to cork tossed by the eddies that foam under 

furious lasher. 
Like to skiff lifted, uplifted, in loch by the swift- 
swelling sluices, 

7 



98 THE BOTHIE OF 

So with the music possessing him, swaying him, 

goeth he, look you. 
Swinging and flingmg, and stamping and tramp- 
ing, and grasping and clasping 
TVTiom but gay Janet? — Him rivalling Hobbes, 

briefest-kilted of heroes 
Enters, stoutest, rashest of creatures, mere 

fool of a Saxon, 
Skill-less of philabeg, skill-less of reel too, — the 

whirl and the twirl o't : 
Him see I frisking, and whisking, and ever at 

swifter gyration 
Under brief curtain reveahng broad acres — not 

of broad cloth. 
Him see I there and the Piper — the Piper what 

vision beholds not ? 
Him and his Honor and Arthur, mth Janet our 

Piper, and is it. 
Is it, marvel of marvels ! he too in the maze of 

the mazy. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 99 

Skipping, and tripping, though stately, though 
languid, with head on one shoulder, 

Airhe, with sight of the waistcoat the golden-hair- 
ed Katie consoling ? 

Katie, who simple and comely, and smiling, and 
blushing as ever, 

What though she wear on that neck a blue ker- 
chief remembered as Philip's, 

Seems in her maidenly freedom to need small con- 
solement of waistcoats ! — 
Wherefore in Badenoch then, far-away, in Loch- 
aber, Lochiel, in 

Knoydart, Croydart, Moydart, Morrer, or Ardna- 
murchan, 

Wanders o'er mountain and moorland, in shiehng 
or bothie is sleeping, 

He, who, — and why should he not then ? capric- 
ious ? or is it rejected ? 

Might to the piping of Rannoch be pressing the 
thrilling fair fingers, 



100 THE BOTHIE OF 

Might, as he clasped her, transmit to her bosom 
the throb of his own, — yea, — 

Might in the joy of the reel be wooing and win- 
ning his Katie ? 
What is it Adam reads far off by himself in 
the Cottage ? 

Reads yet again with emotion, again is preparing 
to answer ? 

Answered before too it had been at once, on the 
spur of the moment, 

Answered, but oft reconsidered, and after-thought 
needs will be spoken. 

What is it Adam is reading ? A^Hiat was it, Phihp 
had written ? 
There was it writ, how Philip possessed un- 
doubtedly had been, 

Deeply, entirely possessed by the charm of the 
maiden of Rannoch ; 

Deeply as never before ! how^sweet and bewitch- 
ing he felt her 



TOrER-NA-FUOSICH. 101 

Seen still before him at work, in the garden, the 

bjre, the kitchen ; 
How it was beautiful to him to stoop at her side 

in the shearing, 
Binding uncouthly the ears, that fell from her 

dexterous sickle, 
Building uncouthlj the stooks,* which she laid-by 

her sickle to straighten ; 
How at the dance he had broken through shyness ; 

for four days after 
Lived on her eyes, unspeaking what lacked not 

articulate speaking ; 
How in the room where he slept he met her clean- 
ing and dusting. 
How he unmeaningly talked of clothes for the 

washing, — of this thing. 
That thing, and still as he spoke felt folded unto 

her, united, 

* Shocks. 



102 THE BOTHIE OF 

Yea, without touch united, essentially, bodily with 

her. 
Felt too that she too was feeling what he did, — 

howbeit thev parted ! 
How by a kiss from her lips he had seemed made 

nobler and stronger. 
Yea, for the first time in life a man complete and 

perfect, 
So forth ! much that before too was heard of — 

Howbeit they parted. 
What had ended it all was singular, said he, 

very. 
I was walking along some two miles from the 

cottage 
Full of my dreamings — a girl went by in a party 

with others ; 
She had a cloak on, was stepping on quickly, for 

rain was beginning ; 
But as she passed, from the hood I saw her eyes 

look at me. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 103 

So quick a glance, so regardless I, that although 

I felt it, 
You could n't properly say our eyes met. She 

cast it, and left it : 
It was three minutes perhaps ere I knew what it 

was. I had seen her 
Somewhere before I am sure, but that was n't it ; 

not its import ; 
No, it had seemed to regard me with simple 

superior insight. 
Quietly saying to itself — Yes, there he is still in 

his fancy. 
Letting drop from him at random as things not 

worth considering 
All the benefits gathered and put in his hands by 

fortune, 
Loosing a hold which others, content and unambi- 
tious. 
Trying down here to keep-up, know the value of 

better than he does. 



10-1 THE BOTHIE OF 

Was it this ? was it perhaps ? — Yes there he is 

still in his fancy, 
, Does n't yet see we have here just the things he is 

used-to elsewhere, 
And that the things he likes here, elsewhere he 

would n't have looked at. 
People here too are people, and not as fairy-land 

creatures ; 
He is in a trance, and possessed ; I wonder how 

long to continue ; 
It is a shame and a pity — and no good hkely to 

follow. 
Something hke this, but indeed I cannot the least 

define it. 
Only, three hours thence I was off and away in 

the moorland. 
Hiding myself from myself if I could ; the arrow 

within me. 
Katie was not in the house, thank God : I saw her 

in passing, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 105 

Saw her, unseen myself, with the pang of a cruel 

desertion, 
Poignant enough ; which however but made me 

walk the faster, 
Like a terrible spur running into one's vitals, and 

through them, 
Turning me all into pain and sending me off, I 

suppose hke 
One that is shot to the heart and leaps in the air 

in his dying. 
"What dear Katie thinks, God knows ; poor child ; 

may she only 
Think me a fool and a madman, and no more 

worth her remembering. 
Meantime all through the mountains I tramp and 

know not whither, 
Tramp along here, and think, and know not what 

I should think. 
Tell me then, why as I sleep amid hill tops 

high in the moorland, 



106 THE BOTHIE OF 

Still in my dreams I am pacing the streets of the 

dissolute city, 
Where dressy girls slithering-by upon pavements 

give sign for accosting, 
Paint on their beautiless cheeks, and hunger and 

shame in their bosoms ; 
Hunger by drink and by that which they shudder 

yet burn for, appeasing, — 
Hiding their shame — ah God, in the glare of the 

public gas hghts ? 
Why while I feel my ears catching through slum- 
ber the run of the streamlet, 
Still am I pacing the j)avement, and seeing the 

sign for accosting. 
Still am I passing those figures, nor daring to look 

in their faces ? 
Why when the chill, ere the light, of the daybreak 

uneasily wakes me, 
Find I a cry in my heart crying up to the heaven 

of heavens. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 107 

No, Great Unjust Judge ; she is purity ; I am the 

lost one : 
No, I defy Thee, strike not ; crush me, if thou 

wilt, who deserve it. 
You will not think that I soberly look for such 

things for sweet Katie, 
Contemplate really, as possible even, a thing that 

would make one 
Think death luxury, seek death, to get at damna- 
tion beyond it. 
No, but the vision is on me ; I now first see how 

it happens, 
Feel how tender and soft is the heart of a girl ; 

how passive 
Fain would it be, how helpless ; and helplessness 

leads to destruction. 
Maiden reserve torn from off it, grows never again 

to reclothe it. 
Modesty broken-through once to immodesty flies 

for protection, 



108 THE BOTHIE OF 

Desperate, braving when weakest the greatest and 
direst of dangers ; 

Thinks to be bold and defiant at all times, cannot 
at all times. 

Think by ignoring to fill-up that breach which ig- 
noring but widens. 

Oh, who saws through the trunk, though he leave 
the tree up in the forest, 

When the next wind casts it down, — is his not 
the hand that smote it ? 

Yea, and who barketh the tree, is even as he that 
felleth. 



This is the answer, the second, which, ponder- 
ing long with emotion. 
There by himself in the cottage the Tutor ad- 
dressed to Philip. 

I w^as severe in mj last, mj dear Philip, and 
hasty ; forgive me ; 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 109 

Yes, I -was fain to reply ere I duly had read 
through your letter ; 

But it was written in scraps with crossings and 
counter-crossings 

Hard to connect with each other correctly, and 
hard to decipher ; 

Paper was scarce, I suppose: forgive me ; I write 
to console you. 
Grace is given of God, but knowledge is bought 
in the market ; 

Knowledge needful for all, yet cannot be had for 
the asking. 

There are exceptional beings, one fincts them dis- 
tant and rarely, 

Who, endowed with the vision alike and the inter- 
pretation. 

See, by their neighbours' eyes, and their own still 
motions enlightened, 

In the beginning the end, in the acorn the oak of 
the forest, 



110 THE EOTHIE OF 

In the child of to-daj its children to long genera- 
tions, 

In a thought or a -sv-ish a life, a drama, an 
epos. 

There are inheritors, is it ? by mystical genera- 
tion, 

Heiring the wisdom and ripeness of spirits gone- 
bj ; without labor 

Owning what others bj doing and suffering earn ; 
what old men 

After long years of mistake and erasure are 
proud to have come to, 

Sick with mistake and erasure possess when pos- 
session is idle. 

Yes, there is power upon earth, seen feebly in 
women and children. 

Which can, laying one hand on the cover, read-off, 
unfaltering, 

Leaf after leaf unlifted, the words of the closed 
book under, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 



Ill 



Words which we are poring at, hammering at, 

stumblmg at, spelhng. 
Rare is this ; to many in pittance and modicum 

given, 
Woridng, an instinct blind, in woman and child 

and rustic. 
Rare in full measure, and often e'en then too 

maimed and hampered ; 
When with the power of speech, and the spirit 

united of music, 
Lo, a new day has dawned, and the ages wait upon 

^hakspeare — 
Rare is this ; wisdom mostly is bought for a price 

in the market, — 
Rare is this ; and happy, who buy so much for so 

little. 
As I conceive have you, and as I will hope has 

Katie. 
Knowledge is needful for man — needful no less 

for woman, 



112 THE BOTHIE OF 

Even in Highland glens, were they vacant of 
shooter and tourist. 
Not that, of course, I mean to prefer your 
blindfold hurry 

Unto a soul . that abides most loving yet most 
withholding ; 

Least unfeeling though calm, self-contained yet 
most unselfish ; 

Renders help and accepts it, a man among men 
that are brothers. 

Views, not plucks the beauty, adores, and demands 
no embracing. 

So in its peaceful passage whatever is lovely and 
gracious 

Still without seizing or spoiling, itself in itself re- 
producing. 

No, I do not set PhiHp herein on the level of 
Arthur, 

No, I do not compare still tarn with furious tor- 
rent. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 113 

Yet will the tarn overflow, assuaged in the lake 

be the torrent. 
"Women are weak as you say, and love of all 

things to be passive, 
Passive, patient, receptive, yea even of wrong 

and misdoing. 
Even to force and misdoing with joy and victori- 
ous feeling 
Passive, patient, receptive ; for that is the strength 

of their being, 
Like to the earth taking all things and all to good 

converting. 
Oh 't is a snare indeed ! — Moreover, remember 

it, Philip, 
To the prestige of the richer the lowly are prone 

to be yielding. 
Think that in dealing with them they are raised 

to a different region ; 
Where old laws and morals are modified, lost, exist 

not ; 



114 THE BOTHIE OF 

Ignorant they as tliej are, tliej have but to con- 
form and be yielding ; 

There to protect and to guide them the old ' T is 
not usual avails not, 

But of a new ^Tis not right must the soul be with 
travail delivered, 

Yea, — itself of itself engender and bear the 
protector. 

How shall a poor quiet girl self-create the law and 
commandment ? 

How shall a poor silly sheep get endowed with the 
will of a woman ? 
But I said this in my letter before, and need 
not repeat it. 

You will have seen yourself the danger of pantry- 
flirtation, 

You will not now run after what merely attracts 
and entices, 

Every-day things highly colored, and common- 
place carved and gilded. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICIL 115 

You ■\Yill henceforth seek only the good ; and seek 
it, Phihp, 

Where it is — not more abundant perhaps, but — 
more easily met with ; 

Where you are surer to find it, less likely to run 
into error, 

In your station, regardful of that, though not de- 
pendent. 

But as I said, I have said this before and need 
not repeat it. 
So was the letter completed : a postscript after- 
ward added. 

Telling the tale that was told by the dancers re- 
turning from Rannoch. 

So was the letter completed : but query, whither 
to send it ? 

Not for the will of the wisp, the cloud, and the 
hawk of the moorland. 

Ranging afar through Lochaber, Lochiel, and 
Knoydart, and Croydart, 



116 THE BOTHIE OF 

Have even latest extensions adjusted a postal 

arrangement. 
Query, resolved very shortly when Hope from his 

chamber descending, 
Came with a note in his hand from the Lady, his 

aunt, of Hay ; 
Came and revealed the contents of a missive that 

brought strange tidings ; 
Came and announced to the friends in a voice that 

was husky with wonder, 
Philip was staying at Balloch, was there in the 

room with the Countess, 
Philip to Balloch had come and was dancing with 

Lady Maria. 
Philip at Balloch, he said, after all that stately 

refusal. 
He there at last — strange ! marvel, marvel 

of marvels ! 
Airlie, the Waistcoat, with Katie, we left him this 

morning at Rannoch ; 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 117 

Airlie with Katie, he said, and Philip with Lady 

Maria. 
And amid laughter Adam paced up and down, 

repeating 
Over and over, unconscious, the phrase which 

Hope had lent him, 
Dancing at Balloch, you say, in the castle, with 

Lady Maria. 



118 THE BOTHIE OF 



Putavi 



Stultus ego huic nostrse siinilerii. 

So in the cottage with Adam the pupils five to- 
gether 

Duly remained, and read, and looked no more for 
Philip, 

Philip at Balloch shooting and dancing with Lady 
Maria. 

Breakfast at eight, and now, for brief September 
dayhght. 

Luncheon at two, and dinner at seven, or even 
later, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 119 

Five full hours between for the loch and the glen 
and the mountain, — 

So in the joj of their Hfe and glory of shooting 
jackets, 

So thej read and roamed, the pupils five with 
Adam. 
What if autumnal shower came frequent and 
chill from the westward, 

What if on browner sward with yellow leaves be- 
sprinkled 

Gemming the crispy blade, the delicate gossamer 
gemming. 

Frequent and thick lay at morning the chilly bead 
of hoar frost. 

Duly in matutine still, and daily, whatever the 
w^eather. 

Bathed in the rain and the frost and the mist with 
the Glory of headers 

Hope. Thither also at times of cold and of possi- 
ble gutters 



120 THE BOTHIE OF 

Careless, unmindful, unconscious, would Hobbes, 
or e'er they departed. 

Come, in a heavy pea-coat his trouserless trunk 
enwrapping. 

Come, under coat over-brief those lusty legs dis- 
playing, 

All from the shirt to the slipper the natural man 
revealing. 
Duly there they bathed, and daily, the twain or 
the trio, 

There where of mornings was custom, where over 
a ledge of granite 

Into a granite bason descended the amber tor- 
rent ; 

Beautiful, very, to gaze-in ere plunging ; beauti- 
ful also, 

Perfect as picture, as vision entrancing that comes 
to the sightless, 

Through the great granite jambs the stream and 
glen and mountain. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 121 

Purple with heather the mountam, the level stream 
in foreground ; 

Beautiful, seen by snatches in intervals of dress- 
ing, 

Morn after morn, unsought for, recurring ; them- 
selves too seeming 

Kot as spectators, accepted into it, immingled, as 
truly 

Part of it as are the kine in the field lying there 
by the birches. 
So they bathed, they read, they roamed in glen 
and forest ; 

Par amid blackest pines to the waterfall they 
shadow, 

Far up the long long glen to the loch, and the 
loch beyond it. 

Deep under huge red cliffs, a secret : and oft by 
the starhght. 

Or the aurora perchance, racing home for the 
eight o'clock mutton. 



122 THE BOTHIE OF 

So they bathed, and read, and roamed in heathery 

Highland ; 
There in the joy of their Hfe and glory of shooting 

jackets, 
Bathed and read and roamed, and looked no more 

for Philip. 



List to a letter that came from Phihp at Balloch 

to Adam. 
I am here, my friend ! — idle, but learning 
wisdom. 
Doing penance, you think ; content, if so, in my 

penance. 
You have conjectured a change must have come 

to my mind : I believe it ! 
You will believe it too ; if I tell you the thoughts 
that haunt me ! 
Often I find myself saying, while watching in 
dance or on horseback 



TOPER-x\A-FUOSICH. 123 

One that is here, in her freedom, and grace, and 
imperial sweetness. 

Often I find mjself saying, old faith and doctrine 
abjuring, 

Into the crucible casting philosophies, facts, con- 
victions, — 

Were it not well that the stem should be naked of 
leaf and of tendril, 

Poverty-stricken, the barest, the dismallest stick 
of the garden ; 

Flowerless, leafless, unlovely, for ninety-and-nine 
long summers. 

So in the hundredth, at last, were bloom for one 
day at the summit. 

So but that fleeting flower were lovely as Lady 
Maria. 
Often I find myself saying, and know not my- 
self as I say it. 

What of the poor and the weary ? their labor and 
pain is needed. 



124 THE BOTHIE OF 

Perish the poor and the wearj ! what can thej 

better than perish, 
Perish in labor for her, who is worth the destruc- 
tion of empires ? 
What ! for a mite, or a mote, an impalpable odor 

of honor, 
Armies shall bleed ; cities burn ; and the soldier 

red from the storming 
Carry hot rancor and lust into chambers of 

mothers and daughters : 
What ! would ourselves for the cause of an hour 

encounter the battle. 
Slay and be slain; lie rotting in hospital, hulk, 

and prison ; 
Die as a dog dies ; die secure that to uttermost 

ages 
Not one ray shall illumine our midnight of shame 

and dishonor, • 
Yea, till in silence the fingers stand still on the 

world's great dial 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 125 

Fathers and mothers, the gentle and good of un- 
born generations, 

Shall to their little ones point out our names for 
their loatliing and horror ? 

Yea ? — and shall hodmen in beer-shops complain 
of a glory denied them, 

Which could not ever be theirs more than now it 
is theirs as spectators ? 

Which could not be, in all earth, if it were not for 
labor of hodmen ? 
And I find myself saying and what I am saying, 
discern not. 

Dig in thy deep dark prison, miner ! and find- 
ing be thankful ; 

Though unpolished by thee, unto thee unseen in 
perfection, 

While thou art eating black bread in the poison- 
ous air of thy cavern, 

Far away glitter the gem on the peerless neck of 
a Princess. 



126 THE EOTHIE OF 

Dig, and starve, and be thankful ; it is so, and 

thou hast been aiding. 
Often I find myself saying, in irony is it, or 

earnest ? 
Yea, what is more, be rich, ye rich ! be sublime 

in great houses. 
Purple and delicate linen endure ; be of Burgundy 

patient ; 
SuiFer that service be done you, permit of the page 

and the valet. 
Vex not your souls with annoyance of charity 

schools or of districts. 
Cast not to swine of the sty the pearls that should 

gleam in your foreheads. 
Live, be lovely, forget them, be beautiful even to 

proudness, 
Even for their poor sakes whose happiness is to 

behold you : 
Live, be uncaring, be joyous, be sumptuous ; only 

be lovely, — 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 127 

Sumptuous not for display, and jojous, not for en- 
joyment ; 

Not for enjoyment truly ; for Beauty and God's 
great glory ! 
Yes, and I say, and it seems inspiration — of 
Good or of Evil ! 

Is it not He that hath done it and who shall dare 
gainsay it ? 

Is it not even of Him, who hath made us ? — 
Yea, for the Rons 

Roaring after their prey, do seek their meat from 
God! 

Is it not even of Him, hwo one kind over 
another 

All the works of His hand hath disposed in a won- 
derful order ? 

"Who hath made man, as the beasts, to live the one 
on the other, 

Who hath made man as Himself to know the law 
— and accept it ! 



128 THE BOTHIE OF 

You will wonder at this, my friend ! I also 

wonder ! 
But we must live and learn; we can't know all 

things at twenty. 
List to a letter of Hobbes to Philip his friend at 

Balloch. 
All Cathedrals are Christian, all Christians are 

Cathedrals, 
Such is the orthodox doctrine ; 't is ours with a 

slight variation ; 
Every "Woman is, or should be a Cathedral, 
Built on the ancient plan, a Cathedral pure and 

perfect. 
Built by that only law, that Use be suggestor of 

Beauty, 
Naught be concealed that is done, but all things 

done to adornment. 
Meanest utilities seized as occasions to grace and 

embellish. — 
So had I duly commenced in the spirit and style 

of my Philip, 



TOPER-NA-PUOSICH. 129 

So had I formally opened the Treatise upon the 
Laws of 

Architectural Beauty in Application to Women, 

So had I writ. — But my fancies are palsied by 
tidings they tell me, 

Tidings — ah me, can it be then ? that I the 
blasphemer accounted, 

Here am with reverent heed at the wondrous anal- 
ogy working. 

Pondering thy words and thy gestures, whilst 
thou, a poet apostate, 

(How are the mighty fallen !) whilst thou, a shep- 
herd travestie, 

(How are the mighty fallen !) with gun, — with 
pipe no longer, 

Teachest the woods to re-echo thy game-killing 
recantations, 

Teachest thy verse to exalt Amryllis, a Countess' 
dauo;hter ? 



130 THE BOTHIE OF 

What, thou forgettest, bewildered, my Master, 

that rightly considered 
Beauty must ever be useful, what truly is useful 

is graceful ? 
She that is handy is handsome, good dairy-maids 

must be good looking, 
If but the butter be nice, the tournure of the elbow 

is shapely, 
If the cream-cheeses be white, far whiter the 

hands that made them. 
If — but alas, is it true ? while the pupil alone in 

the cottage 
Slowly elaborates here thy system of feminine 

graces. 
Thou in the palace, its author, art dining, small- 
talking and dancing. 
Dancing and pressing the fingers kid-gloved of a 

Lady Maria. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 131 

These are the final words, that came to the 

Tutor from Balloch. 
Yes, jou have conquered, my friend ! you will 

meet me, I hope, in Oxford, 
Altered in manners and mind. I yield to the laws 

and arrangements, 
Yield to the ancient existent decrees : who am I 

to resist them ? 
Yes, you will find me altered in mind, I think, as 

in manners. 
Anxious too to atone for six weeks' loss of your 

Logic. 



So in the cottage with Adam, the Pupils five 
together, 
Read, and bathed, and roamed, and thought not 

now of Philip, 
All in the joy of their life, and glory of shooting 
jackets. 



132 THE BOTHIE OF 



VI. 

Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daplinin. 

Bright October was come, the misty-bright Oc- 
tober, 

Bright October was come to burn and glen and 
cottage ; 

But the cottage was empty, the matutine de- 
serted. 
Who are these that walk by the shore of the 
salt sea water ? 

Here in the dusky eve, on the road by the salt 
sea water ? 
Who are these ? and where ? it is no sweet 
seclusion ; 



TOPEK-NA-FUOSICH. 133 

Blank hill sides slope down to a salt sea loch at 

their bases, 
Scored by runnels, that fringe ere they end with 

rowan and alder ; 
Cottages here and there out-standing bare on the 

mountain. 
Peat-roofed, windowless, white ; the road under- 
neath by the water. 
There on the blank hill side, looking down 

through the loch to the ocean, 
There with a runnel beside, and pine trees twain 

before it. 
There with the road underneath, and in sight of 

coaches and steamers, 
Dwelhng of David Mackaye and his daughters 

Elspie and Bella, 
Sends up a column of smoke the Bothie of Toper- 

na-fuosich. 
And of the older twain, the elder was telling 

the younger, 



134 THE BOTHIE OF 

How on his pittance of soil he hved, and raised 

potatoes, 
Barley, and oats, in the bothie where lived his 

father before him ; 
Yet was smith by trade, and had travelled making 

horse-shoes 
Far, in the army had seen some service with brave 

Sir Hector, 
Wounded soon, and discharged, disabled as smith 

and soldier ; 
He had been many things since that, — drover, 

school-master. 
Whitesmith, — but when his brother died childless 

came up hither ; 
And although he could get fine work that would 

pay, in the city, 
Still was fain to abide where his father abode be- 
fore him. 
And the lassies are bonnie, — I 'm father and 

mother to them, — 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 135 

Bonnie and young; thej 're healthier here, I 
judge, and safer : 

I mjself find time for their reading, writing, and 
learning. 
So on the road they walked by the shore of 
the salt sea water. 

Silent a youth and maid, and elders twain con- 
versing. 



This was the letter that came when Adam was 

leaving the cottage. 
If you can manage to see me before going off to 

Dartmoor, 
Come by Tuesday's coach through Glencoe (you 

have not seen it) 
Stop at the ferry below, and ask your way (you 

will wonder. 
There however I am) to the Bothie of Toper-na- 

fuosich. 



136 THE BOTHIE OF 

And on another scrap, of next daj's date, was 

written : 
It was by accident purely I lit on the place ; I 

was going 
Quietly, travelling homeward, by one of these 

wretched coaches ; 
One of the horses cast a shoe ; and a farmer 

passing 
Said, Old David 's your man ; a clever fellow at 

shoeing 
Once ; just up by the firs ; they call it Toper-na- 

fuosich. 
So I saw and spoke with David Mackaye, our 

acquaintance. 
WTien we came to the journey's end, some five 

miles further. 
In my unoccupied evening I walked back again 

to the bothie. 
But on a final crossing, still later in date was 

added : 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 137 

Come as soon as you can ; be sure and do not 

miss me. 
Who would have guessed I should find my haven 

and end of my travel, 
Here, by accident too, in the bothie we laughed 

about so ? 
Who would have guessed that here would be she 

whose glance at Rannoch 
Turned me in that mysterious way ; yes, angels 

conspiring. 
Slowly drew me, conducted me, home, to herself; 

the needle 
Which in the shaken compass flew hither and 

thither, at last, long 
Quivering, poises to north. I think so. But I am 

cautious ; 
More, far more than I was in the old silly days 

when I left you ; 
Though I much fear that my eyes may betray me. 

Still I am heedful ; 



138 



THE BOTHIE OF 



Any way try ; and have learnt some self-controul 
of manner, 

As I conceive, with staying and contemplating at 
Balloch ; 

Other things I hope, but clearly to be more re- 
tentive. 
Not at the bothie now ; at the changehouse in 
the clachan ; * 

Why I delay my letter is more than I can tell 
you. 
There was another scrap, without or date or 
comment. 

Dotted over with various observations, as fol- 
lows : 

Only think, I had danced with her twice, and did 
not remember. 

I was as one that sleeps on the railway; one, who 
dreaming 

* Public-house in the hamlet. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 139 

Hears through his dream the name of his home 

shouted out ; hears and hears not, — 
Faint, and louder again, and less loud, dying in 

distance ; 
Dimlj conscious, with something of inward debate 

and choice, — and 
Sense of claim and reahty present, relapses 
Nevertheless, and continues the dream and fancy, 

while forward 
Swiftly, remorseless, the car presses on, he knows 

not whither. 
Handsome who handsome is, who handsome 

does is more so ; 
Pretty is all very pretty, it 's prettier far to be 

useful. 
No, fair Lady Maria, I say not that ; but I ivill 

say, 
Stately is service accepted, but lovelier service 

rendered. 



140 THE BOTHIE OF 

Interchange of service the law and condition of 

beauty : 
Any way beautiful only to be the thing one is 

meant for. 
I, I am sure, for the sphere of mere ornament am 

not intended : 
Ko, nor she, I think, thy sister at Toper-na- 

fuosich ; 
No, she transcends it as far as I perhaps fall be- 
low it. — 
This was the letter of Philip, and this had 

brought the Tutor : 
This is, why tutor and pupil are walking with 

David and Elspie. — 
"VYhen for the night they part, and these, once 

more together, 
Went by the lochside along to the changehouse 

near in the clachan, 
Thus to his pupil anon commenced the grave man 

Adam. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 141 

Yes, she is beautiful, Philip, beautiful even as 

morning : 
Yes, it is that which I said, the Good and not the 

Attractive ! 
Happy is he that finds, and finding does not leave 

it! 
And by his side in silence walked Phihp, and 

presently answered, 
Happy is he that finds, if he lose not : but happy, 

and more too, 
Blessed, be he by whose showing the seeker is 

changed to the finder. 
Ten more days did Adam with Philip abide at 

the changehouse. 
Ten more nights they met, they walked with father 

and daughter. 
Ten more nights, and night by night more distant 

away were 
Philip and she ; every night less heedful, by habit, 

the father. 



142 THE BOTHIE OF 

Happy ten days, most happy ; and, otherwise than 

thought of, 
Fortunate visit of Adam, companion and friend to 

David. 
Happy ten days, be ye fruitful of happiness! 

Pass o'er them slowly, 
Slowly ; like cruise of the prophet be multiplied, 

even to ages ! 
Pass slowly o'er them, ye days of October ; ye 

soft misty mornings. 
Long dusky eves ; pass slowly ; and thou great 

Term-Time of Oxford, 
Awful with lectures and books, and httle-goes and 

great-goes, 
Till but the sweet bud be perfect, recede and re- 
tire for the lovers. 
Yea, for the sweet love of lovers, postpone thyself 

even to doomsday ! 
Pass o'er them slowly, ye hours ; be with them 

ye Loves and Graces ! 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 143 

Indirect and evasive no longer, a cowardly 
bather, 

Clinging to bough and to rock, and sidling along 
by the edges, 

In your faith, ye Muses and Graces, who love 
the plain present. 

Scorning historic abridgment and artifice anti- 
poetic. 

In your faith, ye Muses and Loves, ye Loves and 
Graces, 

I will confront the great peril, and speak with the 
mouth of the lovers. 

As they spoke by the alders, at evening, the run- 
nel below them, 

Elspie a dihgent knitter, and Philip her fingers 
watching. 



144 THE BOTHIE OF 



VII. 

Vesper adest, juvenes, consurgite; Vesper Olympo 
Expectata diu vix tandem lumina tollit. 

For she confessed, as they sat in the dusk, and 

he saw not her blushes, 
Elspie confessed at the sports long ago with her 

father she saw him, 
"When at the door the old man had told him the 

name of the bothie ; 
There after that at the dance ; yet again at the 

dance in Rannoch — 
And she was silent, confused. Confused much 

rather Philip 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 145 

Buried his face in bis hands, his face that with 

blood was bursting. 
Silent, confused, yet by pity she conquered her 

fear, and continued. 
Katie is good and not silly ; be comforted. Sir, 

about her ; 
Katie is good and not silly ; tender, but not like 

many 
Carrying off, and at once for fear of being seen, in 

the bosom ^ 

Locking-up as in a cupboard the pleasure that any 

man gives them. 
Keeping it out of sight as a prize they need be 

ashamed of; 
That is the way I think, Sir, in England more 

than in Scotland ; 
No, she lives and takes pleasure in all, as in beau- 
tiful weather. 
Sorry to lose it, but just as we would be to lose 

fine weather. 

10 



146 THE BOTHIE OF 

And she is strong to return to herself and feel 

undeserted, 
For she always keeps burning a cheerful fire in- 
side her. 
Oh, she is strong, and not silly ; she thinks no 

more about you ; 
She has had kerchiefs before from gentle, I know, 

as from simple . 
Yes, she is good and not silly ; yet were you 

wrong, Mr. Philip, 
Wrong, for yourself perhaps more than for her. 

But Philip rephed not, 
Raised not his eyes from the hands on his knees. 

And Elspie continued. 
That was what gave me much pain, when I met 

you that dance at Rannoch, 
Dancing myself too with you, while Katie danced 

with Donald ; 
That was what gave me such pain ; I thought it 

all delusion. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 147 

All a mere chance, and accident, — not proper 
choosing, — 

There were at least five or six — not there, no, 
that I don't say, 

But in the country about, — you might just as 
well have been courting. 

That was what gave me much pain, and (you 
wont remember that, though,) 

Three days after, I met you, beside my uncle's, 
walking. 

And I was wondering much, and hoped you 
would n't notice, 

So as I passed I could n't help looking. You 
did n't know me. 

But I was glad, when I heard next day you 
were gone to the teacher. 
And uplifting his face at last, with eyes di- 
lated, 

Large as great stars in mist, and dim, with dab- 
bled lashes, 



148 THE BOTHIE OF 

Philip with new tears starting, 

You think I do not remember, 
Said, — suppose, that I did not observe ! Ah me, 

shall I tell you ? 
Elspie, it was your look that sent me away from 

E-annoch. 
It was your glance, that, descending, an instant 

revelation, 
Showed me, where I was, and whitherward going ; 

recalled me, 
Sent me, not to my books, but to wrestlings of 

thought in the mountains. 
Yes, I have carried your glance within me un- 

dimmed, unaltered, 
As a lost boat the compass some passing ship has 

lent her. 
Many a weary mile on road, and hill, and moor- 
land : 
It has been with me in shieling and bothie of 

wandering drovers, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 149 

It has been with me, more precious, in chariot and 

palace of peeress : 
And jou suppose, that I do not remember, I had 

not observed it ! 
0, did the sailor bewildered observe when they 

told him his bearings ? 
0, did he cast overboard, when they parted, the 

compass they gave him ? 
And he continued more firmly, although with 

stronger emotion. 
Elspie, why should I speak it ? you cannot be- 
lieve it, and should not : 
Why should I say that I love, which I all but said 

to another ? 
Yet should I dare, should I say, Elspie, you 

only I love ; you, 
First and sole in my life that has been and surely 

that shall be ; 
Could — 0, could. you believe it, Elspie, be- 

Heve it and spurn not ! 



150 THE BOTHIE OF 

Is it — possible, ■ — possible, Elspie ? 

Well, — she answered, 
Quietly, after her fashion, still knitting, — Well, 

I think of it. 
Yes, — I don't know, Mr. Philip, — but only it 

feels to me strangely- 
Like to the high new bridge, they used to build 

at, below there, 
Over the burn and glen on the road. You wont 

understand me. 
But I keep saying in my mind — this long time 

slowly with trouble 
I have been building myself, up, up, and toilfully 

raising, 
Just like as if the bridge were to do it itself with- 
out masons, 
Painfully getting myself upraised one stone on 

another, 
All one side I mean ; and now I see on the 

other 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 151 

Just such another fabric uprismg, better and 
stronger, 

Close to me, coming to jom me : and then I some- 
times fancy, — 

Sometimes I find myself dreaming at nights about 
arches and bridges, — 

Sometimes I dream of a great invisible hand com- 
ing down, and 

Dropping the great keystone in the middle : there 
in my dreaming, 

There I feel the great keystone coming in, and 
through it 

Feel the other part — all the other stones of the 
archway. 

Joined into mine with a queer happy sense of 
completeness, tingling 

All the way up from the other side's basement- 
stones in the water. 

Through the very grains of mine : — just Hke, 
when the steel, that you showed us 



152 THE BOTHIE OF 

Moved to the magnet, it seemed a feeling got hold 

of them both. But 
This is confusion and nonsense. I am mixing all 

things I can think of. 
And you wont understand me, Mr. Philip. 

But while she was speaking, 
So it happened, a moment she paused from her 

work, and pondering. 
Laid her hand on her lap : Philip took it : she did 

not resist : 
So he retained her fingers, the knitting being 

stopped. But emotion 
Came all over her more and more, from his hand, 

from her heart, and 
Most from the sweet idea and image her brain was 

renewing. 
So he retained her hand, and, his tears down- 
dropping on it, 
Trembling a long time kissed it at last. And she 

ended. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 153 

And as she ended, up rose he ; saymg, What have 

I heard? Oh, 
What have I done, that such words should be said 

to me ? Oh, I see it. 
See the great keystone coming down from the 

heaven of heavens ! 
x\nd he fell at her feet, and buried his face in her 

apron. 
But as under the moon and stars they went to 

the cottage, 
Elspie sighed and said, Be patient, dear Mr. 

Philip, 
Do not do anything hasty. It is all so soon, so 

sudden. 
Do not say anything yet to any one. 

Elspie, he answered, 
Does not my friend go on Friday ? I then shall 

see nothing of you : 
Do not I go myself on Monday ? 

But oh, he said, Elspie ; 



154 THE BOTHIE OF 

Do as I bid jou, mj child ; do not go on calling 

me Mr. ; 
Might I not just as well be calling you Miss 

Elspie ? 
Call me, this heavenly night, for once, for the first 

time, Philip. 
Phihp, she said and laughed, and said she could 

not say it ; 
Philip, she said ; he turned, and kissed the sweet 

lips as they said it. 



But on the morrow Elspie kept out of the way 
of Philip ; 
And at the evening seat when he took her hand 

by the alders. 
Drew it back, saying, almost peevishly, 

No, Mr. Philip, 
I was quite right, last night ; it is too soon, too 
sudden. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 155 

What I told jou before was foolish, perhaps, was 

hasty. 
When I think it over, I am shocked and terrified 

at it. 
Not that at all I unsay it; that is, I know I 

said it. 
And when I said it, felt it. But oh, we must wait, 

Mr. Philip ! 
We must n't pull ourselves at the great keystone 

of the centre ; 
Some one else up above must hold it, fit it, and 

fix it ; 
If we try to do it, we shall only damage the arch- 
way, 
Damage all our own work that we wrought, our 

painful up-building. 
When, you remember, you took my hand last 

evening, talking, 
I was all over a tremble : and as you pressed the 

fingers 



156 THE BOTHIE OF 

After, and afterwards kissed it, I could not speak. 
And then, too, 

As we went home, you kissed me for saying your 
name. It was dreadful. 

I have been kissed before, she added, blushing 
slightly, 

I have been kissed more than once by Donald my 
cousin, and others ; 

It is the way of the lads, and I make up my mind 
not to mind it ; 

But Mr. Philip, last night, and from you, it was 
diiFerent quite. Sir. 

When I think all that over, I am shocked and ter- 
rified at it. 

Yes, it is dreadful to me. 

She paused, but quickly continued, 

Smiling almost fiercely, continued, looking up- 
ward. 

You are too strong, you see, Mr. Philip ! you are 
like the sea there. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 157 

Which will come, through the straits and all be- 
tween the mountains, 

Forcing its great strong tide into every nook and 
inlet. 

Getting far in, up the quiet stream of sweet in- 
land water. 

Sucking it up, and stopping it, turning it, driving 
it backward, 

Quite preventing its own quiet running : And 
then, soon after, 

Back it goes off, leaving weeds on the shore, and 
wrack and uncleanness : 

And the poor burn in the glen tries again its 
peaceful running. 

But it is brackish and tainted, and all its banks 
disordered. 

That was what I dreamt all last night. I was the 
burnie, 

Trying to get along through the tyrannous brine, 
and could not ; 



158 THE BOTHIE OF 

I was confined and squeezed in the coils of the 

great salt tide, that 
Would mix-in itself with me, and change me ; I 

felt myself changing ; 
And I struggled, and screamed, I believe, in my 

dream. It was dreadful. 
You are too strong, Mr. PhiHp ! I am but a poor 

slender burnie, 
Used to the glens and the rocks, the rowan and 

birch of the woodies, 
Quite unused to the great salt sea ; quite afraid 

and unwilling. 
Ere she had spoken two words, had Philip re- 
leased her fingers : 
As she went on, he recoiled, fell back, and shook, 

and shivered ; 
There he stood, looking pale and ghastly ; when 

she had ended, 
Answering in hollow voice, 

It is true ; oh quite true, Elspie ; 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 159 

Oh, jou are always right ; oh, what, what have I 
been doing ! 

I will depart to-morrow. But oh, forget me not 
wholly, 

WlioUy, Elspie, nor hate me, no, do not hate me, 
my Elspie. 
But a revulsion passed through the brain and 
bosom of Elspie ; 

And she got up from her seat on the rock ; put- 
ting by her knitting ; 

Went to him, where he stood, and answered. 

No, Mr. Philip, 

No, you are good, Mr. Philip, and gentle ; and I 
am the foolish ; 

No, Mr. Philip, forgive me. 

She stepped right to him, and boldly 

Took up his hand, and placed it in hers ; he dar- 
ing no movement ; 

Took up the cold hanging hand, up-forcing the 
heavy elbow. 



160 



THE BOTHIE OF 



I am afraid, she said, but I will I and kissed the 

fingers. 
And he fell on his knees and kissed her own past 

counting. 



But a revulsion wrought in the brain and bosom 

of Elspie ; 
And the passion she just had compared to the 

vehement ocean. 
Urging in high spring-tide its masterful way 

through the mountains, 
Forcmg and flooding the silvery stream, as it runs 

from the inland ; 
That great water withdrawn, receding here and 

passive, 
Felt she in myriad springs, her sources, far in the 

mountains. 
Stirring, collecting, rising, upheaving, forth-out- 
flowing. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICK. 161 

Taking and joining, right welcome, that delicate 

rill in the valley, 
Filling it, making it strong, and still descending, 

seeking. 
With a blind forefeeling descending, evermore 

seeking, 
"With a delicious forefeeling, the great still sea be- 
fore it ; 
There deep into it, far, to carry, and lose in its 

bosom, 
"Waters that still from their sources exhaustless 

are fain to be added. 
As he was kissing her fingers, and knelt on the 

ground before her. 
Yielding backward she sank to her seat, and of 

what she was doing 
Ignorant, bewildered, in sweet multitudinous 

vague emotion, 
Stooging, knowing not what, put her lips to the 

curl on his forehead : 



162 THE BOTHIE OF 

And Philip, raising himself, gently, for the first 
time, round her 

Passing his arms, close, close, enfolded her, close 
to his bosom. 
As they went home by the moon. Forgive me, 
Philip, she whispered ; 

I have so many things to think of, all of a sud- 
den ; 

I who had never once thought a thing, — in my 
ignorant Highlands. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 163 



VIII. 



Jam veniet virgo, jam dicetur hymenaeus, 

Hymen, O hymenaee ! Hymen, ades, O liymenaee ! 



But a revulsion again came over the spirit of 

Elspie, 
When she thought of his wealth, his birth and 

education : 
Wealth indeed but small, though to her a difference 

truly; 
Father nor mother had Philip, a thousand pounds 

his portion, 
Somewhat impaired in a world where nothing is 

had for nothing ; 



164 THE BOTHIE OF 

Fortune indeed but small, and prospects plain and 
simple. 
But the many things that he knew, and the ease 
of a practised 

Intellect's motion, and all those indefinable 
graces 

(Were they not hers, too, Philip?) to speech and 
manner, and movement, 

Lent by the knowledge of self, and wisely instruct- 
ed feeling, — 

AVhen she thought* of all these, and these contem- 
plated daily, 

Daily appreciating more, and more exactly ap- 
praising, — 

With these thoughts, and the terror withal of a 
thing she could not 

Estimate, and of a step (such a step !) in the 
dark to be taken. 

Terror nameless and ill understood of deserting 
her station, — 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 165 

Daily heavier, heavier upon her pressed the sor- 
row, 
Daily distincter, distincter within her arose the 
conviction, 

He was too high, too perfect, and she so unfit, so 
unworthy, 

(Ah me ! Philip, that ever a word such as that 
should be written I) 

It would not do for him ; nor for her ; she also 
was something. 

Not much indeed and diiferent, yet not to be 
lightly extinguished. 

Should Jie — he have a wife beneath him? her- 
self be 

An inferior there where only equality can 
be? 

It would do neither for him, nor for her. 

Alas for Philip ! 

Many were tears and great was perplexity. Nor 
had availed then 



166 THE BOTHIE OF 

All his prayer and all his device. But much was 
spoken 

Now, between Adam and Elspie ; companions 
were they hourly : 

Much by Elspie to Adam, enquiring, anxiously 
seeking. 

From his experience seeking impartial accurate 
statement 

What it was to do this or do that, go hither or 
thither, 

How in the after life would seem what now seem- 
ing certain 

Might so soon be reversed ; in her quest and ob- 
scure exploring 

StiU from that quiet orb soliciting light to her 
footsteps ; 

Much by Elspie to Adam, enquiring, eagerly seek- 
ing : 

]\Iuch by Adam to Elspie, informing, reassur- 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 167 

Much that was sweet to Elspie bj Adam, heed- 
fully speaking, 

Quietly, indirectly, in general terms, of PhiHp, 

Gravely, but indirectly, not as incognizant wholly. 

But as suspending until she could seek it, direct 
intimation ; 

Much that was sweet in her heart of what he 
was and would be. 

Much that was strength to her mind, confirming 
beliefs and insights 

Pure and unfaltering, but young and mute and 
timid for action ; 

Much of relations of rich and poor, and true ed- 
ucation. 
It was on Saturday eve, in the gorgeous bright 
October, 

Then when brackens are changed, and heather 

blooms are faded, 
And amid russet of heather and fern green trees 
are bonnie ; 



168 THE BOTHIE OF 

Alders are green, and oaks ; the rowan scarlet 

and yellow ; 
One great glory of broad gold pieces appears the 

aspen, 
And the jewels of gold that were hung in the 

hair of the birch- tree, 
Pendulous, here and there, her coronet, necklace, 

and earrings. 
Cover her now, o'er and o'er ; she is weary and 

scatters them from her. 
There, upon Saturday eve, in the gorgeous bright 

October, 
Under the alders knitting, gave Elspie her troth 

to Phihp. 
For as they talked, anon she said — 

It is well, Mr. PhHip. 
Yes, it is well 4 I have spoken, and learnt a deal 

with the teacher. 
At the last I told him all, I could not help 

it; 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 169 

And it came easier with him than could have 

been with my father ; 
And he calmly approved, as one that had fully 

considered. 
Yes, it is well, I have hoped, though quite too 

great and sudden, 
I am so fearful, I think it ought not to be for 

years yet. 
I am afraid ; but believe in you ; and I trust to 

the teacher : 
You have done all things gravely and temperate, 

not as in passion ; 
And the teacher is prudent, and surely can tell 

what is likely. 
What my father will say, I know not : we will 

obey him : 
But for myself, I could dare to believe all well, 

and venture. 
Mr. Philip, may it never hereafter seem to be 

different ! 



170 THE BOTHIE OF 

And she hid her face — 

0, where, but in Philip's bosom ! 
After some silence, some tears too perchance, 

Philip laughed and said to her, 
So, mj own Elspie, at last you are clear that 

I 'm bad enough for you. 
Ah, but your father wont make one half the 

question about it 
You have — he '11 think me, I know, nor better 

nor worse than Donald, 
Neither better nor worse for my gentlemanship 

and book-work, 
Worse, I fear, as he knows me an idle and vaga- 
bond fellow, 
Though he allows, but he '11 think it was all for 

your sake, Elspie, 
Though he allows I did some good at the end of 

the shearing. 
But I had thought in Scotland you did n't care for 

this folly. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 171 

How I wish, he said, you had lived all your days 
in the Highlands, 

This is what comes of the year you spent in our 
foohsh England. 

You do not all of you feel these fancies. 

No, she answered, 

And in her spirit the freedom and ancient joy 
was reviving. 

No, she said, and uplifted herself, and looked for 
her knitting. 

No, nor do J, dear Philip, I don't myself feel al- 
ways 

As I have felt, more sorrow for me, these four 
days lately. 

Like the Peruvian Indians I read about last win- 
ter. 

Out in America there, in somebody's life of Pi- 
zarro ; 

Who were as good perhaps as the Spaniards ; only 
weaker ; 



172 THE BOTHIE OF 

And that the one big tree might spread its root 

and branches, 
All the lesser about it must even be felled and 

perish. 
No, I feel much more as if I, as weU as you, 

were. 
Somewhere, a leaf on the one great tree, that up 

from old time 
Growing, contains in itself the whole of the virtue 

and life of 
Bjgone days, drawing now to itself all kindreds 

and nations, 
And must have for itself the whole world for its 

root and branches. 
No, I belong to the tree, I shall not decay in the 

shadow ; 
Yes, I feel the life-juices of all the world and the 

ages 
Coming to me as to you, more slowly no doubt 

and poorer, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 173 

You are more near, but then you ^Yill help to con- 

\ej them to me. 
Ko, don't smile, Philip, now, so scornfully ! — 

While you look so 
Scornful and strong, I feel as if I were standing 

and trembling, 
Fancying the burn in the dark a wide and rushing 

river. 
And I feel coming into me from you, or perhaps 

from elsewhere, 
Strong contemptuous resolve ; I forget, and I 

bound as across it. 
But after all, you know, it may be a dangerous 

river. 
Oh, if it were so, Elspie, he said, I can carry 

you over. 
Nay, she replied, you would tire of having me 

for a burthen. 
sweet burthen, he said, and are you not light 

as a feather ? 



174 THE BOTHIE OF 

But it is deep, very likely, she said, over head and 

ears too. 
let us try, he answered, the waters themselves 

will support us, 
Yea, very ripples and waves will form to a boat 

underneath us ; 
There is a boat, he said, and a name is written 

upon it, 
Love, he said, and kissed her. — 

But I will read your books, though, 
Said she, you '11 leave me some, Philip. 

Not I, replied he, a volume. 
This is the way with you all, I perceive, high and 

low together. 
Women must read, — as if they did n't know all 

beforehand : 
Weary of plying the pump we turn to the run- 
ning water, 
And the running spring will needs have a pump 

built on it. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 175 

Weary and sick of our books we come to repose 

in your eye-sigkt, 
As to the woodland and water, the freshness and 

beauty of Nature, 
Lo, you will talk, forsooth, of the things we are 

sick to death of. 
What, she said, and if I have let you become 

my sweetheart, 
I am to read no books ! but you may go your 

ways then. 
And I will read, she said, with my father at home 

as I used to. 
If you must have it, he said, I myself will read 

them to you. 
Well, she said, but no, I will read to myself, 

when I choose it ; 
What, you suppose we never read anything here 

in our Highlands, 
Bella and I with the father in all our winter even- 



176 THE BOTHIE OF 

But we must go, Mr. Philip — 

I shall not go at all, said 

He, if jou call me Mr. Thank heaven ! that 's 
well over. 
No, but it 's not, she said, it is not over, nor 
will be. 

Was it not then, she asked, the name I called jou 
first by ? 

No, Mr. Philip, no — you have kissed me enough 
for two nights, 

No — come, Philip, come, or I '11 go myself with- 
out you. 
You never call me Philip, he answered, until I 

kiss you. 
As they went home by the moon that waning 
now rose later. 

Stepping through mossy stones by the runnel un- 
der the alders, 

Loitering unconsciously, Pliilip, she said, I will 
not be a lady, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 177 

We will do work together, you do not wish me a 

lady, 
It is a weakness perhaps and a foohshness ; still 

it is so, 
I could not bear to be served and waited upon by- 
footmen, 
No, not even by women — 

And, God forbid, he answered, 
God forbid you should ever be ought but yourself, 

my Elspie, 
As for service, I love it not, I ; your weakness is 

mine too, 
I am sure Adam told you as much as that about 

me. 
I am sure, she said, he called you wild and 

flighty. 
That was true, he said, till my wings were 

clipped by Elspie. 
But, my Elspie, he said, you Avould like to see, I 

fancy, 

12 



178 THE BOTHIE OF 

Something of the world, of men and women. 

You will not refuse me, 
You will one day come with me and see my uncle 

and cousins, 
Sister, and brother, and brother's wife. You 

should go, if you liked it, 
Just as you are ; just what you are, at any rate, 

my Elspie. 
Yes, we will go, and give the old solemn gentility 

stage-play 
One little look, to leave it with all the more satis- 
faction. 
That may be, my Philip, she said, you are good 

to think of it. 
But we are letting our fancies run-on indeed ; 

after all 
It may all come, you know, Mr. Philip, to noth. 

ing whatever. 
There is so much that needs to be done, so much 

that may happen. 



TOPEK-NA-FUOSICH. 179 

All that needs to be done, said he, shall be done, 
and quickly. 



And on the morrow he took good heart and 

spoke with Davdd ; 
Not unwarned the father, nor had been unper- 

ceiving ; 
Fearful much, but in all from the first reassured 

by Adam. 
In the first few days after Philip came to the 

bothie 
They had become hearty friends, full of trust the 

one in the other : 
And in these last three he had talked with him 

much, and tried him. 
And he remembered, how at the first he had liked 

the lad ; and, 
Then too, the old man's eye was much more for 

inner than outer. 



180 THE BOTHIE OF 

And the natural tune of his heart without mis- 
giving 
Went to the noble words of that grand song of the 

Lowlands, 
Manh is the guinea stamj), hut the man 's a man 

for a' that. 
Still he was doubtful, would hear nothing of it 

now, but insisted 
Philip should go to his books: if he chose, he 

might write ; if after 
Chose to return, might come ; he truly beheved 

him honest. 
But a year must elapse, and many things might 

happen. 
Yet at the end he burst into tears, called Elspie, 

and blessed them ; 
Elspie, my bairn, he said, I thought not, when at 

the doorway 
Standing with you, and telling the young man to 

come and see us. 



TOPEK-NA-FUOSICH. 181 

I did not think he woidd one day be asking me 

here to surrender 
What is to me more than wealth in mj Bothie of 

Toper-na-fuosich. 



182 THE BOTHIE OF 



IX. 

Arva, beata Petamus arva ! 

So on the morrow's morrow, with Term-time dread 
returning, 

Philip returned to his books, and read, and re- 
mained at Oxford, 

All the Christmas and Easter remained and read 
at Oxford. 
Great was wonder in College when Postman 
showed to Butler 

Letters addressed to David Mackaje, at Toper- 
na-fuosich. 

Letter on letter, at least one a week, one every 
Sunday : 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 183 

Great at that Highland post was wonder too 

and conjecture, 
When the postman showed letters to wife, and 

wife to the lasses. 
And the lasses declared they could n't be really 

to David ; 
Yes, thej could see inside a paper with E. 

upon it. 
Great was surmise in College at breakfast, wine, 

and supper. 
Keen the conjecture and joke ; but Adam kept 

the secret, 
Adam the secret kept, and Philip read like 

furj. 
This is a letter written by Philip at Christmas 

to Adam. 
What I said at Balloch has truth in it ; only dis- 
torted. 
Plants are some for fruit, and some for flowering 

only ; 



184: THE BOTHIE OF 

Let there be deer in parks, as well as kine in 

paddocks, 
Grecian buildings upon the earth, as well as 

Gothic. 
There may be men, perhaps, whose vocation it is 

to be idle. 
Idle, sumptuous even, luxurious, if it must 

be: 
Only let each man seek to be that for which 

Nature meant him. 
Independent surely of pleasure, if not regard- 
less. 
Independent also of station, if not regardless : 
Irrespective alike of station, as of enjoyment. 
Do his duty in that state of life to Avhich God, not 

man, shall call him. 
If you were meant to plough, Lord Marquis, out 

with you, and do it. 
If you were meant to be idle, beggar, behold, I 

will feed thee ; 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 185 

Take mj purse ; you have far better right to it, 

friend, than the Marquis. 
If jou were born for a groom, and jou seem, by 

your dress, to beheve so. 
Do it like a man, Sir George, for pay, in a livery 

stable ; 
Yes, you may so release that slip of a boy at the 

corner. 
Fingering books at the window, misdoubting the 

eighth commandment. 
What a mere Dean, with those wits, that debtor- 

and-creditor head-piece ! 
Go, my detective D. D., take the place of Burns 

the ganger. 
Ah, fair Lady Maria, God meant you to live, and 

be lovely, 
Be so then, and I bless you. But ye, ye spurious 

ware, who 
Might be plain women, and can be by no possibil- 
ity better ! 



186 THE BOTHIE OF 

— Ye unhappy statuettes, ye miserable trin- 
kets, 

Poor alabaster chimney-piece ornaments under 
glass cases, 

Come, in God's name, come down! the very 
French clock by you 

Puts you to shame with ticking ; the fire-irons de- 
ride you. 

Break your glasses, ye can ! come down, ye are 
not really plaster, 

Come, in God's name, come down ! do anything, 
be but something ! 

You, young girl, who have had such advantages, 
learnt so quickly, 

Can you not teach ? yes, and she likes Sunday 
school extremely. 

Only it 's soon in the morning. Away ! if to 
teach be your calling. 

It is no play, but a business : off ! go teach and 
be paid for it. 



TOPEK-NA-FUOSICH. 187 

Surely, that fussy old dowager yonder was meant 

for the counter ; 
Oh, she is notable very, and keeps her servants in 

order 
Past admiration. Indeed, and keeps to employ 

her talent 
How many, pray ? to what use ? Away, the 

hotel 's her vocation. 
Lady Sophia 's so good to the sick, so firm and 

so gentle. 
Is there a nobler sphere than of hospital nurse 

and matron ? 
Hast thou for cooking a turn, little Lady Clarissa ? 

in with them. 
In with your fingers I their beauty it spoils, but 

your own it enhances ; 
For it is beautiful only to do the thing we are 

meant for. 
But they will marry, have husbands, and children, 

and guests, and households — 



188 THE BOTHIE OF 

Are there then so many trades for a man, for 

women one only, 
First to look out for a husband and then to pre- 
side at his table ? 
Learning to dance, then dancing, then breeding, 

and entertaining ? 
Breeding and rearing of children at any rate the 

poor do 
Easier, say the doctors, and better, with all their 

slaving. 
How many, too, disappointed, not being this, can 

be nothing ! 
How many more are spoilt for wives by the means 

to become so. 
Spoilt for wives and mothers, and everything else 

moreover ! 
This was the answer that came from the Tutor, 

the grave man, Adam. 
Have you ever, Philip, my boy, looked at it in 

this way ? 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 189 

When the armies are set in array, and the battle 
beginning, 

Is it well that the soldier whose post is far to the 
leftward 

Saj, I will go to the right, it is there I shall do 
best service ? 

There is a great Field-Marshal, mj friend, who 
arrays our battalions ; 

Let us to Pro\ddence trust, and abide and work in 
our stations. 
This was the final retort from the eager, impet- 
uous Philip. 

I am sorry to say your Providence puzzles me 
sadly ; 

Children of circumstance are we to be ? you an- 
swer, On no wise ! 

Where does Circumstance end, and Providence 
where begins it ? 

In the revolving sphere which is upper, which is 
under ? 



190 



THE BOTHIE OF 



What are we to resist, and what are we to be 

friends with ? 
If there is battle, 't is battle by night : I stand in 

the darkness. 
Here in the melee of men, Ionian and Dorian on 

both sides, 
Signal and password known ; which is friend and 

which is foeman ? 
Is it a friend ? I doubt, though he speak with the 

voice of a brother. 
Still you are right, I suppose ; you always are, 

and will be. 
Though I mistrust the Field-Marshal, I bow to 

the duty of order. 
Let us all get on as we can, and do what we 're 

meant for, 
Or, as is said in your favorite weary old Ethics, 

our ergon. 
Yet is my feehng rather to ask. Where is the 

battle ? 



TOPER-NA-Fi:OSICH. 191 

Yes, I could find in mj heart to cry, in spite of 

my Elspie, 
that the armies indeed were arrayed, joy of 

the onset, 
Sound, thou Trumpet of God, come forth, Great 

Cause, to array us, 
King and leader appear, thy soldiers sorrowing 

seek thee. 
Would that the armies indeed were arrayed, 

where is the battle ! 
Neither battle I see, nor arraying, nor King in 

Israel, 
Only infinite jumble and mess and disloca- 
tion. 
Backed by a solemn appeal, ' For God's sake do 

not stir, there ! ' 
Yet you are right, I suppose ; if you don't attack 

my conclusion, 
Let us get on as we can, and hunt for and do the 



192 



THE BOTHIE OF 



That is n't likely to be by sitting still, eating and 
drinking. 

Yes, you are right, I dare say, you always were 
and will be, 

And in default of a fight I will put up with peace 
and Elspie. 
These are fragments again without date ad- 
dressed to Adam. 
As at return of tide the total w^eight of 
ocean, 

Drawn by moon and sun from Labrador and 
Greenland, 

Sets-in amain, in the open space betwixt Mull and 
Scarfa, 

Heaving, swelling, spreading, the might of the 
mighty Atlantic ; 

There into cranny and sht of the rocky, cavern- 
ous bottom 

Settles down, and with dimples huge the smooth 
searsurface 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 193 

iEddies, coils, and whirls ; hj dangerous Cor- 
rjvreckan : 

So in my soul of souls, through its cells and secret 
recesses, 

Comes back, swelling and spreading, the old dem- 
ocratic fervor. 
But as the light of day enters some populous 
city. 

Shaming away, ere it come, by the chilly day- 
streak signal, 

High and low, the misusers of night, shaming out 
the gas lamps, — 

All the great empty streets are flooded with 
broadening clearness, 

"Which, withal, by inscrutable simultaneous ac- 
cess 

Permeates far and pierces, to very cellars ly- 
ing in 

Narrow high back-lane, and court and alley of 
alleys : 

13 



194 THE BOTHIE OF 

He that goes forth to his walk, while speeding to 
the suburb, 

Sees sights only peaceful and pure ; as, laborers 
setthng 

Slowly to work, in their limbs the lingering sweet- 
ness of slumber ; 

Humble market^carts, coming-in, bringing-in, not 
only 

Flower, fruit, farm-store, but sounds and sights of 
the country 

Dwelling yet on the sense of the dreamy drivers ; 
soon after 

Half-awake servant-maids unfastening drowsy shut- 
ters 

Up at the windows, or down, letting-in the air by 
the doorway ; 

School-boys, school-girls soon, with slate, portfolio, 
satchel, 

Hampered as they haste, those running, these 
others maidenly tripping ; 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 195 

Early clerk anon turning out to stroll, or it 

may be 
Meet his sweetheart — waiting behind the garden 

gate there ; 
Merchant on his grass-plat haply, bareheaded ; 

and now by this time 
Little child bringing breakfast to " father " that 

sits on the timber 
There by the scaffolding ; see, she waits for the 

can beside him ; 
Meantime above purer air untarnished of new-lit 

fires : 
So that the whole great wicked artificial civihzed 

fabric, — 
All its unfinished houses, lots for sale, and railway 

outworks, — 
Seems reaccepted, resumed to Primal Nature and 

Beauty : — 
— Such — in me, and to me, and on me the love 

of Elspie ! 



196 THE BOTHIE OF 

Philip returned to his books, but returned to 

his Highlands after ; 
Got a first 't is said ; a winsome bride, 't is cer- 
tain. 
There while courtship was ending, nor yet the 

wedding appointed. 
Under her father he learnt to handle the hoe and 

the hatchet : 
Thither that summer succeeding came Adam and 

Arthur to see him 
Down by the lochs from the distant Glenmorison : 

Adam the tutor, 
Arthur, and Hope ; and the Piper anon who was 

there for a visit. 
He had been into the schools ; plucked almost ; 

all but a gone-coon ; 
So he declared ; never once had brushed up his 

hairy iVldrich ; 
Into the great might-have-been upsoaring subHme 

and ideal 



TOPEK-NA-FUOSICH. 197 

Gave to historical questions a free poetical treat- 
ment ; 

Leaving vocabular ghosts undisturbed in their lexi- 
con-limbo, 

Took Aristophanes up at a shot ; and the whole 
three last weeks 

Went in his life and the sunshine rejoicing to Nune- 
ham and Godstowe : 

What were the claims of Degree to those of life 
and the sunshine ? 

There did the four find Philip, the poet, the 
speaker, the chartist, 

Delving at Highland soil, and railing at Highland 
landlords, 

Railing, but more, as it seemed, for the fun of the 
Piper's fury. 

There saw they David and Elspie Mackaje, and 
the Piper was almost, 

Almost deeply in love with Bella the sister of 
Elspie ; 



198 THE BOTHIE OF 

But the good Adam was heedful; they did not go 

too often. 
There in the bright October, the gorgeous bright 

October, 
Wlien the brackens are changed, and heather 

blooms are faded. 
And amid russet of heather and fern green trees 

are bonnie, 
There, when shearing had ended, and barley- 

stooks were garnered, 
David gave Philip to wife his daughter, his dar- 
ling Elspie ; 
Elspie the quiet, the brave, was wedded to Philip 

the poet. 
So won Philip his bride. They are married 

and gone — But oh. Thou 
Mighty one. Muse of great Epos, and Idyll the 

playful and tender. 
Be it recounted in song, ere we part, and thou fly 

to thy Pindus, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 199 

(Pindus is it, Muse, or Aetna, or even Ben- 
Nevis?) 

Be it recounted in song, Muse of the Epos and 
Idyll, 

Who gave what at the wedding, the gifts and fair 
gratulations. 
Adam, the grave careful Adam, a medicine-chest 
and tool-box, 

Hope a saddle, and Arthur a plough, and a rifle 
the Piper, 

Airlie a necklace for Elspie, and Hobbes a Family 
Bible, 

Airlie a necklace, and Hobbes a Bible and iron 
bedstead. 
What was the letter, Muse, sent withal by 
the corpulent hero ? 

This is the letter of Hobbes the kilted and corpu- 
lent hero. 
So the last speech and confession is made, 
mj eloquent speaker ! 



200 THE BOTHIE OF 

So the good time is coming* or come is it ? my 
chartist ! 

So the Cathedral is finished at last, my Pugin 
of Women ; 

Finished, and now, is it true ? to be taken out 
whole to New Zealand ! 

Well, go forth to thy field, to thy barley, with 
Ruth, Boaz, 

Ruth, who for thee hath deserted her people, her 
gods, her mountains, 

Quitted her INIoab-Lochaber for thee, thou Naomi- 
Boaz. 

Go, as in Ephrath of old, in the gate of Bethle- 
hem said they, 

Go, be the wife in thy house both Rachel and 
Leah unto thee ! 

Be thy wedding of silver, albeit of iron thy bed- 
stead ! 

* "The Good Time Coming." — Chartist Song. 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 201 

Yea, to the full golden fifty be lengthened ! while 

fair memoranda 
Duly fill-up the fly-leaves duly left in the Family 

Bible. 
Live, be happy, and look too to keep a whole skin 

on thy sirloin. 
Live, and when Hobbes is forgotten, mayst thou, 

an unroasted Grandsire, 
See thy children's children, and Democracy upon 

New Zealand ! 
This was the letter of Hobbes, and this the 

Postscript after. 
Wit in the letter will prate, but wisdom speaks in 

a postscript ; 
Listen to wisdom — Which things — you perhaps 

did n't know, my dear fellow, 
I have reflected ; Which things are an allegory^ 

Philip. 
For this Rachel-and-Leah is marriage ; which, I 

have seen it. 



202 THE BOTHIE OF 

Lo, and have known it, is always, and must be, 

bigamy only, 
Even in noblest kind a duality, compound and 

complex, 
One part heavenly-ideal, the other vulgar and 

earthy : 
For this Rachel-and-Leah is marriage, and Lab an 

their father 
Circumstance, chance, the world, our uncle and 

hard taskmaster. 
Rachel we found as we fled from the daughters of 

Heth by the desert ; 
Rachel we met at the well ; we came, we saw, we 

kissed her ; 
Rachel we serve-for, long years, — that seem a 

few days only. 
E'en for the love we have to her, — and win her 

at last of Laban. 
Is it not Rachel we take in our joy from the hand 

of her father ? 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 203 

Is it not Rachel we lead in the mystical veil from 
the altar ? 

Rachel we clream-of at night : in the morning, be- 
hold, it is Leah. 

" Nay, it is custom," saith Laban, and Leah in- 
deed is the elder. 

Happy and wise who consents to redouble his ser- 
vice to Laban, 

So, fulfilling her week, he may add to the elder 
the younger, 

Not repudiates Leah, but wins him the Rachel 
unto her ! 

Neither hate thou thy Leah, my Phihp, she also 
is w^orthy ; 

So — many days shall thy Rachel have joy, and 
survive her sister : 

Yea and her children — Which things are an 
allegory^ Philip, 

Aye, and by Origen's head with a vengeance too, 
a long one ! 



204 THE BOTHIE OF 

This was a note from the Tutor, the grave man 

nicknamed Adam. 
I shall see jou of course, my Philip, before jour 

departure ; 
Joy be with you, my boy, with you and your 

beautiful Elspie. 
Happy is he that found, and finding was not 

heedless ; 
Happy is he that found, and happy the friend that 

was with him. 
So won Philip his bride ; — 
They are married, and gone to New Zealand. 
Five hundred pounds in pocket, with books, and 

two or three pictures. 
Tool-box, plough, and the rest, they rounded the 

sphere to New Zealand. 
There he hewed, and dug ; subdued the earth and 

his spirit ; 
There he built him a home ; there Elspie bare him 

his children, 



TOPER-NA-FUOSICH. 205 

David and Bella ; perhaps ere this too an Elspie 

or Adam ; 
There hath he farmstead and land, and fields of 

corn and flax fields ; 
And the Antipodes too have a Bothie of Toper-na- 

fuosich. 



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